


Bite Hard

by osaki_nana_707



Series: Bite Hard 'Verse [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Attempted Rape, Cutting, Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, M/M, References to Suicide, Rough Sex, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:42:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osaki_nana_707/pseuds/osaki_nana_707
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Arthur supposed it was only a matter of time before he completely snapped.

He supposed it was only a matter of time before he ended up doing something regrettable or something stupid, but really, even he didn't expect it to go as far as it did.

He really, truly, honestly did _not_ expect to wake up in someone's apartment with his face squashed into an unfamiliar pillow and his head pounding so incessantly that there was instant nausea.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what happened through the pain.

Arthur had been sitting in class, the tie of his school's uniform strangling him almost as much as the boredom. He had been tapping his pencil on the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The teacher had pointed to some kind of equation, explaining. She might as well have been speaking French.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A girl behind him had whispered to the girl sitting next to her about some hot older guy she was meeting up with after school and how he was going to give her a ride in his Corvette.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Arthur had looked up at the clock.

Tick-tock. Tap. Tick-tock. Tap. Tick-tock. Tap.

It was the same thing again. It was the same damn day again. He could have sworn that Tuesday was yesterday, but this was the _same_ _ **fucking**_ _day_. He'd been feeling that way all week, all month, every repeated Tuesday for what felt like forever. He'd get up. He'd take a shower. He'd get dressed in his school uniform. He'd go downstairs. He'd eat breakfast alone: cold cereal, a piece of buttered toast, a grapefruit, a glass of milk. He'd listen to his mom flirt with the pool boy because his father was away on another business trip because apparently three days a year with his family was more than enough. He'd walk to school. He'd sit in class. His teacher would talk about Math or French or whatever the hell she was talking about while nobody listened. He would go home. He would eat dinner. He would go upstairs. He would do his homework. He would get into his pajamas. He would go to sleep.

Wash, rinse, repeat. Every day.

Tick-tock. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Every _FUCKING_ day.

 _Snap_.

"Arthur?"

He had looked down at the two pieces of his pencil in his fist and then up at the teacher who had her hands on her hips and her eyebrows arched and her nostrils flaring. He just stared at her.

"Is anybody home in there, Arthur?" she had asked, voice condescending and snooty.

"Uh…" he'd so eloquently replied.

"What class are you in?" the teacher asked.

"Uh…" he said again.

"We're in Algebra, Arthur, so do care to explain why you have your literature book out on your desk?"

The class had snickered.

"Uh…" he said again.

Same. Fucking. Thing.

"Is that all you know how to say, Arthur? Do I need to send you back to pre-school to learn how to speak English?"

And that was when it happened.

 _Snap_.

"Fuck you," he grumbled, stood, and left the room. The teacher was so stunned, all she could do was stand there with her eyes bugging out of her head and her jaw hanging slack. All of the other children were equally such.

He had walked away from the school then and never slowed his stride. He walked as far as he could from his house, stripping out of his blazer, his tie, and his button-down so that he was only in his black undershirt and slacks. He shoved each piece of discarded clothing into his bag, never stopping. Before he had realized it, he was in the dirtiest, most dangerous part of the city, deeper into the slums than he'd ever been. He saw prostitutes on the corner, thugs spraying graffiti, all kinds of things he'd heard about but never actually seen. A flutter of panic had settled in his chest then, as soon as one of said thugs locked eyes with him, and he immediately slipped inside an alleyway, descended some stairs, and slipped inside a door.

Inside, there had been music blaring so loud that he couldn't think. It boomed through his bones, rattled his brain around inside his skull with such an intensity that he didn't even notice the smell of alcohol and sweat and cigarettes, even though it was pungent, or the fact that the club was occupied by only men… at least, he didn't notice it at first.

He blinked, squeezing his eyes shut a few times, and slowly built up the courage to peel himself off of the wall. No one was paying him any mind inside of the club, so he had felt safe.

He couldn't believe what he had done, then. He was amazed by his own bravado, how he had just… after his sixteen years of life in complete silence, living the same day over and over and over again, he had…

He ran a hand through his floppy bangs, trying to smooth them back a little. He was sure he wasn't old enough to be inside the club, and he was sure that he wasn't fooling anyone with his baby face and good-boy haircut and limp noodle physique. Still… it _was_ pretty dark in the club. Arthur could barely see the faces of the people right next to him.

…Or in front of him, apparently, he discovered because he rammed face first into a man whose back felt like a brick wall.

"Ah, I—" he stammered, and the man turned around, just as one of the flashing lights of the club illuminated his face in gold and…

Jesus _Christ_.

Arthur had never seen men other than his father, his father's occasional business associates, the teachers at his school, and the hired help. Every single man in his life had had their uniforms and their painted on expressions, their dark circles under their eyes and their frown lines, their pages of boring information…

This man was not like any man he had ever seen. This was a _man_. He had messy hair, and underneath his skin tight white t-shirt, Arthur could see lines of ink peeking through. His jeans were loose and splotched with what looked to be paint. His nails were bitten down to the quick, and he had a scar over his eyebrow, and his mouth... Holy _God_ , his _**mouth**_ … Arthur was positive he'd never seen lips like that on any man, hell on any _body_ before.

Arthur had been too caught up in his boredom to ever think much about his sexuality, but he was definitely considering it now. Staring at this _man_ , all he could do was lick his lips.

"Careful there," the man said, somewhat irritably, and _fuck_ , he was _British_. Arthur could have melted into the floor.

Then, the man raised an eyebrow at him, leaned forward so that he could get a closer look at Arthur and asked, "Are you old enough to be in here?"

"I'm twenty-one," Arthur said, unable to take his eyes off of the man's mouth. The sporadic brain cells that had sent him spiraling into this madness in the first place were igniting with all sorts of filthy ideas he didn't even know he was capable of.

This must have been the _lust_ he'd heard his mother refer to in her ridiculous love letters to the staff member of the month.

"I don't believe you," the man said.

"I just look young. Believe me, I get it all the time," Arthur said, when he really wanted to say _fuck me_. "Would I be here if I was too young?"

"Don't know," the man admitted, looking over Arthur's shoulder towards the door. "Is the bouncer out there, or did he sneak off to get high again?"

"I had a hell of a time convincing him I was old enough."

Arthur couldn't believe what he was saying. He was _lying_ to a complete stranger, with devious intent no less. Hell, he was standing in the middle of a club in the middle of the slums in the middle of the city in the middle of the _afternoon_. His teachers, his classmates, his mother, none of them knew where he was. The man could have been a fucking _serial killer_ , but he couldn't stay away. Not now. Not ever.

The man smirked and pounded his fist on the bar to signal the bartender. "Tell you what, angel," he said, placing a warm hand on Arthur's back and leading him to a stool, "for every truth you tell me, I'll buy you a drink. How does that sound?"

Arthur licked his lips again. He'd never drank. He'd been brainwashed by his community to never even think about it, even though his mother went to bed sloshed every night. "I'm Arthur," he said, sitting, "and I'm actually eighteen."

It turned out telling a truth and a lie made the lie sound like the truth because the man bought him two shots of tequila.

"Old enough to drink in my country," the man shrugged. "People call me Eames."

Arthur tipped back the shot, and it burned like hellfire on the way down. If it was a warning, he didn't take the hint. He downed the second shot immediately.

"Have you ever drank before?" Eames asked.

"Of course I have," Arthur lied, and with two shots of tequila in him, it was easier.

"You drink like an amateur," Eames smirked and ordered another shot before downing the two he'd ordered for himself. "Do you frequent the gay bars? I've never seen you around."

"Gay—this is a gay bar?" Arthur stammered, and he felt his cheeks flush from more than just alcohol. It came out before he could stop himself.

"It's called The Screaming Rooster, and it's filled with nothing but men. What did you think it was?"

Arthur downed the shot. "I've never been to a gay club," he admitted, and then lied, "but I've fucked guys before."

"Oh, really?"

Another shot.

"Oh, _yeah_ ," Arthur said, grinning, and he saw a little sparkle in Eames's eyes. "I've fucked tons of guys. I usually just met them online or at college."

"A college man, eh?" Eames asked. "What brings you here on a Wednesday afternoon?" He dug a cigarette out of his pocket and slipped it between those god-like lips of his and lit it.

"Boredom," Arthur said, and that was the truth. Boredom and insanity…

"Do you smoke?" Eames asked, pulling the cigarette from between his lips. He blew out smoke, and Arthur was intoxicated by it.

"Yeah," Arthur practically sighed.

Eames offered Arthur his cigarette. "Fine then, prove it."

A second later, Arthur was curled over the stool with a hacking cough, cigarette dangling between his fingers. Eames took it back and lifted Arthur's chin to look at him. "No shot for you, you darling little liar," he whispered, and somehow Arthur heard him over the music.

…and that was when Arthur kissed him, sloppily and feverishly. He'd been wanting to do it since they'd made eye contact.

"What was that for?" Eames asked when Arthur pulled away.

"I just wanted to," Arthur breathed, and that earned him another shot.

Twenty minutes later, Eames had Arthur up against the wall, tongue slipping its way between Arthur's teeth, and all Arthur could do was copy him and tangle his fingers in his hair. "Fuck… _Fuck_ …" he groaned, and his hips sprung forward to rub against Eames's.

Five minutes later, Eames had dragged Arthur out the back door of the club to the parking lot where he had a motorcycle.

He had a fucking _motorcycle._

Fuck that chick and her hot guy and his corvette. Eames had a motherfucking _Harley_.

Arthur had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep from moaning. He stumbled a little from the tequila and Eames laughed at him.

Arthur pressed himself up against Eames's back, feeling the heat emanating off of his skin even through the shirt and vaguely thought, as the wind whipped back his hair, Eames's motorcycle screaming out of the parking lot, _what am I doing_?

That was about as far as he got when it came to regret at that moment.

Eames's apartment was only a few blocks away. It was a loft at the very top floor of an old, run-down building, and it was only one large room. The bathroom was closed off by an extra wall and a curtain, the furniture was mismatched, and there were canvases laid out along almost every surface. Some of them were painted on, some not. One of them in particular looked to be a half-finished landscape with the word FUCK OFF painted across it in bright orange.

Arthur turned back on Eames then, and before Eames could dare to get a good look at him in the light, he smashed his lips against his again, hands snaking around his neck. Eames kissed him back with fervor, slipping his hands under Arthur's shirt.

He pulled away only long enough to let Eames pull his shirt over his head and then lunged back in.

"You kiss like an amateur," Eames whispered against Arthur's jaw, sending him stumbling backwards as he lead him to the bed. "Those boys didn't teach you how to do it properly."

"You weren't complaining before," Arthur slurred, partially out of drunkenness and partially out of arousal. His knees hit the edge of the mattress, and he fell upon the quilt with Eames on top of him.

"Not a complaint. Just an observation," Eames replied and pressed his palm to Arthur's cock, stroking him through his trousers.

Arthur's breath hitched, and he almost yelped. He'd never been touched by anyone other than himself, and he'd been scared by the church to never do it to himself or he'd be sent to Hell. Now he was thinking that maybe Hell was worth it.

"Fuck me," Arthur groaned.

Eames seemed willing to oblige, even when Arthur whined when he lost contact. Eames tugged his shirt over his head, revealing tattoos Arthur couldn't have dreamed of and couldn't wait to dream of. "Trousers off. Now," Eames commanded.

Arthur fumbled with the button and zipper, his hands dumb with alcohol. He tugged them down, underwear and all, over his straining cock, and by the time he managed, Eames was already slicking his fingers.

He tugged Arthur's legs up onto his shoulders and slipped a finger in, only as far as the first knuckle, and he cursed. "Fuck, you're tight," he hissed. "You sure you've done this before?"

Arthur could only gape like a fish, eyes shut, mewling.

Eames shoved the finger in and started to work Arthur open, sliding in another finger after only a few thrusts, and Arthur was whimpering as he said, "Fuck me _now_."

He didn't care if he was impatient or foolish or a bunch of other vocabulary words he couldn't remember with as much tequila in his system as there was. He wanted to feel the burning pain. He wanted to be _wrecked_.

Eames scissored his fingers a couple of more times before saying, "Your wish is my command."

When Eames pushed himself inside, Arthur howled. Tears were streaming instantly, and the pain was something he'd never imagined… and yet, underneath it all, there was a thrumming heat of arousal that made him dizzy… well, _dizzier_.

Eames wasn't gentle. He slammed into Arthur, grunting over the sound of skin slapping against skin, and he reached down and started jerking Arthur off in rhythm of it, and Arthur was so blinded by it all that he was no longer aware of who he was. He just sobbed against the pain, groaned and moaned amongst the heat, arched and bucked and begged and gripped the quilt until he was white knuckled.

It built and built and built, the heat in his stomach, until he was so hot that he thought he was going to explode, and explode he did, coming all over Eames's hand and his own stomach, and he was _screaming_. Eames thrust into him a few more times and then he was growling as he came.

Arthur watched as Eames unfolded Arthur, pulling himself out and leaving to toss out the condom, and Arthur rolled onto his front, sobbing into Eames's pillow a few times before he just went numb all over.

He tugged the blankets over his sweat drenched form, and suddenly everything was black.

Now he was awake with an unbelievable headache. Well, that explained a lot.

Eames glanced up from the couch where he was sitting with a sketchbook on his lap, squinting in the dim light. "Oh, you're up, are you?"

Arthur responded by hurling over the side of the bed.

"Oh, Jesus!" Eames complained, jumping to his feet.

Arthur tried to roll onto his back and just breathe, but he was met with a pain more unbearable in his ass than the headache, and he squealed before bursting into tears.

"Fuck, fuck, get the hell up," Eames growled, grabbing Arthur by the arm, and he stumbled out of the bed, falling against his chest. His legs trembled underneath him, and he tumbled back until he was clutching onto the bedpost. "Oh, fuck," Eames sighed, pulling back the blankets to reveal a reddish-brown stain. "I knew I shouldn't have done that so soon."

"I'm sorry!" Arthur screamed in a panic because Jesus _Christ_ , what the _hell_ was he doing here? From the window, he could tell it was the middle of the night.

Eames threw some towels over the vomit and stripped the bed before looking back at Arthur. "Sorry for what?"

Arthur could think of a few things, including getting blood all over his bed sheets, vomiting all over his floor… but he whimpered, "I'm sorry I lied."

He released the bedpost but fell almost immediately. He grabbed for his underwear and trousers, but Eames stilled his hand and pulled him back to his feet. He gently laid Arthur face first on the mattress, and he begged Eames not to. "Hush," Eames mumbled and disappeared behind the bathroom curtain for a moment before returning with a wet wash cloth. "You've got dried blood on you."

…and he softly started wiping the blood away.

"What're you…" Arthur asked weakly, "What're you doing?"

"I'm cleaning you up," Eames said, as if Arthur was stupid, "so you can put your clothes back on… This isn't so bad. It's not as bad as I thought it was. You'll probably have trouble walking straight for a few days."

Arthur snorted, and he wasn't sure if it was out of frustration or humor. His head still felt like someone was ramming jackhammers along the inside of it, but at least he'd calmed down.

"So," Eames continued, moving away to work on the mess on the floor, "which lie are you upset about? The one where you said you smoked earlier, or the one you didn't admit to in the fact that you've never been fucked by a man before?"

Arthur curled onto his side, pressing the palm of his hand into his eye socket. "I'd never been fucked by anyone," he admitted pathetically. "I'd never even been kissed before."

Eames huffed, eyebrows raised high, wrinkling his forehead. "You're taking the piss."

"I don't know what that means," Arthur moaned in pain, pressing his other hand over his other eye to try to block out any bit of light. "I never kissed anyone besides Stacey Anderson in grade school, and that was only for a second… Fuck, I can't believe I… I must have been out of my… Holy shit…"

He heard something be tossed into the trash, and Eames said from a slight distance away. "Sorry to ruin all those firsts for you, but for the record, you did practically beg me to fuck you."

"I was drunk and stupid with lust and out of my fucking mind," Arthur groaned. Feeling a tug on his wrist, he managed to pull one hand away from his eye so that Eames could place some pills in his hand before curling his fingers over them. "I'm so sorry…"

Eames rolled his eyes. "Jesus, for _what_? For claiming you'd never fuck me sober? I don't care about that. I was pretty arseholed myself even before you showed up, ah… I can't even remember your name."

"It's _Arthur_ ," Arthur whined and slipped the pills into his mouth, swallowing them dry.

" _Arthur_?" Eames tested the word on his tongue and laughed a little. "Your parents weren't too kind to you then."

"No, they're not," Arthur mumbled, wishing he could just curl into a little ball and die, "and I would have fucked you sober."

Then what's with the bloody apologies then? Did you discover you were straight?"

"I _lied_ ," Arthur lamented, pressing both hands back to his eyes. "I shouldn't have… I mean, you… I… _Fuck_ , I…"

"You must be Catholic to be harboring that amount of guilt over a _lie_."

"I'm only sixteen years old."

Arthur could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped.

"You… You said you were eighteen. Fuck, before that you said you were twenty-one, are you fucking _serious_?"

"I'm sorry!"

Eames grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him onto his feet. "Don't just lay there blubbering your apologies. Do you understand—Do you fucking understand that—Jesus…"

Eames's features had softened when he looked at him, and Arthur wondered if he looked as frightened and guilty as he felt. "I… I won't tell anyone, I promise. I know it's not… I mean, I know that you could go to prison for it, but you won't. I won't tell anybody. It's my fault anyway."

Eames just groaned, running a hand through his hair, looking Arthur up and down. "No, I'm to fucking blame here. Jesus, you barely look fourteen with a face like that. I should have known. _Fuck_."

"I… I guess I should just… go…" Arthur mumbled, turning to grab his things up off of the floor. He was flushed with humiliation and sick with guilt.

"Don't bother," Eames sighed, defeated. "It's four in the morning. I'm not going to let you out on those streets right now."

"Oh."

Eames retreated to his spot on the couch, picked up his sketchbook, and started working again. "There are some blankets under the bed. You can go back to sleep, kill off that hangover of yours."

Arthur tugged his underwear out from his pants and slipped them on. His whole body ached when he moved, so his walk over to the couch was gruelingly slow. "What are you doing anyway?"

"Nothing," Eames sighed. "Just trying not to fall out of practice."

"So, you're an artist or something?"

"I'd like to think so, but I haven't exactly gotten a lot of attention for it. I usually just sell forgeries of famous paintings. I'm good at copying I guess, but I haven't anything worthwhile that's original in a long time."

"I was never good at art in school," Arthur mumbled, leaning over to see. "Do you just do landscapes or…"

"I actually prefer to draw people. Landscapes get hung up in dentist's offices and such though, so I try to do those too."

Arthur pointed to the one with the orange FUCK OFF splattered over it. "That one's not going in a dentist's office, is it?"

Eames chuckled, despite himself. "No, it certainly is not. I gave up on it. It just didn't look right. I'm afraid my muse is dead… maybe I never had one. I can't paint anymore. I feel like I can't do anything anymore."

"Will you draw me?" Arthur asked, and if anything, he was trying to prove he didn't blame Eames for what had happened. "I promise I'll be impressed. I'll even pay you… I mean, I've only got like… five dollars in my wallet, but—"

"No, no, you don't have to pay me," Eames said in exasperation. "That'd make me feel like you were a prostitute. Go lay down on the bed, and I'll see what I can do."

Arthur did, curling up under a blanket he dug out from under the bed. Eames dragged a chair out from the table in the kitchen and balanced his sketchbook on his leg propped up on the bed stand. "Just look natural," he explained. "I hate bloody posed things."

"Okay," Arthur said, face lightly crushed into the pillow, arm hanging limply off the side of the bed, and he stared at Eames through hooded eyes.

Eames was still a gorgeous man, Arthur thought, with his soft lips and blue-gray eyes that seemed to spark to life all of a sudden as he drew. He was only in a pair of jeans so Arthur could commit all of his tattoos to memory, and he wondered what they all meant.

"So, you don't get fucked a lot at the gay bar?" Arthur asked, and his voice had taken on a scratchy, sleepy quality.

"Most of the time, they're too afraid of me, I guess. They think I'm there to beat them up. It's probably the tattoos, but I don't give a shit. I shouldn't have to change anything to get someone to fuck me. I can pay for that if I have to."

Arthur wet his lips. "I wasn't scared of you."

"You were an idiot little boy looking for danger."

It was the last thing he said that Arthur remembered before he fell asleep.

* * *

Eames finished the sketch of Arthur within about ten minutes, but the boy was long since asleep by then. He watched while Arthur languidly turned to his other side and sighed, and he thought the way the neon lights outside danced across his skin were interesting, so he broke out his pastels and drew him again. After that one was done, he found himself doing a hand study of the boy because he had such long fingers and such clean nails.

By the time the sun came up, Eames had painted a portrait of Arthur's back, wrapped loosely in a blanket around the waist, dark hair tossed up against the pillow haphazardly, and Eames realized, adding in the glimmers of light slipping into the window and onto his pale shoulder that his muse wasn't dead after all.

"Oh, bugger," he mumbled and leaned the painting against a wall where Arthur wouldn't notice it unless he went looking.

Eames flopped back down on the couch, stretching out, and went to sleep because he couldn't think of anything else to do other than obsessively draw Arthur again.

He couldn't help it. He hadn't realized how beautiful the boy was back at the bar because his vision was blurred with tequila. He was clearly as young as he said he was, but his skin was flawless. His limbs were gangly and long and awkward, and it made him a fascinating subject. His hair and eyes were dark and clean and innocent, his little white teeth straight from wearing a retainer. He'd obviously been well-off, Eames had decided, after finding his uniform's blazer falling out of his tipped over bag, and smart too with books on Advanced Calculus and Latin and French.

Well, that didn't mean he was smart. He just took smart people classes. He could have been flunking miserably. Clearly, he didn't always make the best decisions.

When Eames woke up, it was to the sound of Arthur falling out of his bed. "Problem?" he asked sleepily, sitting up to see the boy scrambling around like he couldn't control his limbs, trying to get to his feet.

"What… what time is it?" he asked blearily, hooking onto the same bedpost as he had before for support.

Eames lifted his wrist to check his watch. "Eleven thirty," he said, "on the dot."

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Arthur squeaked, tugging his pants on. "I didn't go home last night… I—I didn't go to school this morning. Oh, fuck, fuck, _fuck_! They'll send the police out after me. I've got to get out of here before they do that."

"Why?" Eames sniffed, smirking a little.

"Because I don't want them to find me here with you or you'll get in trouble."

Eames was a bit surprised by the response. He'd been half-expecting Arthur, clearly thinking without the hangover and pain blinding him, to accuse him of rape and go running to the cops immediately. He of course had hoped that wouldn't happen, but didn't put it past him.

"I doubt they'd come storming in here looking for you. I don't see how they would even know where you are unless you have some kind of tracking device buried behind your ear or something."

Arthur pulled his shirt over his head, sending his hair flying even more out of place. "I don't," he mumbled, "but what if somebody saw us?"

"You've never been outside of suburbia, have you?" Eames snorted. "People in the city don't have time for anyone but themselves."

"I won't take my chances," Arthur replied, buttoning up his shirt before tucking it in. "I'm sorry for all of this shit. I shouldn't have… I just… Yeah, I'm sorry."

"All is forgiven," Eames replied lightly, slouching back on his couch to go back to sleep. "Just don't forget to lock the door on the way out, love, and in the future don't let yourself get so wound up that you have to do something stupid just to be set free."

Arthur paused in the knotting of his tie and stared at the couch where Eames was with wonder. "How did you know…" he started.

"Why is it that we people do anything? You said you were bored, and you were clearly not in the right state of mind."

"If you knew how I lived, you'd think I was being a selfish little shit," Arthur responded in shame. "I'm nothing but a whiny rich kid who has all the free time in the world because my parents don't bother with me, and yet I spend every day going through the motions, school, homework, bed, repeat. I do this to myself, really…" He went back to knotting his tie, too ashamed of himself to look at anyone.

"That sounds like a right terrible life," Eames said then, making Arthur jump a little.

"What?"

"Money is important, but it's not the only thing. If all I wanted was money, I sure as hell wouldn't be trying to scrape by as an artist. I do art because I want to, because I have a passion for it. You strike me as the type who's never had a passion for anything. You've never been allowed to." Eames popped back up then, looking Arthur directly in the eyes, and he couldn't say anything else because the boy had started to cry.

Eames crawled off the couch and approached him just as his sounds started to ascend from sniffles to actual sobs and touched his cheek. "Hey now, don't… I didn't mean to imply that you…"

"You're right," Arthur blubbered, "you're completely right. It's not fair… It fucking sucks, and no one ever seems to notice that I'm screaming on the inside. No one cares…" He buried his face against Eames's chest and cried and cried and cried, letting Eames stroke his hair gently and shush him until he finally did calm down. "I… I'm sorry—"

"Enough of these _apologies_ ," Eames said, brushing his tears away. "You should never apologize for feeling trapped. You shouldn't apologize for things that aren't your fault."

He picked up Arthur's blazer and slipped it over the boy's shoulders. " _I'm_ sorry," Eames said. "That really sucks."

Arthur sniffled and wiped his nose with his wrist. "Goodbye," he mumbled, tugging his bag over his shoulder. As an afterthought, he turned back and kissed him, slowly, innocently, and half-limped away.

Eames's shoulders drooped, the apartment feeling empty without the company. It was the first time anyone had stayed.

He went back to the couch, grabbed his sketchbook, and doodled to pass the hours.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Two

"Where the hell have you been?"

Dominic Cobb was a senior, student council president, star on the basketball team, and one of Arthur's only friends. Dom was a beautiful youth with gold hair always falling out of its coif that his mother surely forced upon him, a mischievous little grin, and blue-green eyes like the ocean at a tropical island's edge. He had been mistaken as much younger than his eighteen years just like Arthur had on occasion, but Cobb didn't seem to have an awkward bone in his body. He exuded confidence.

Even now, he was grinning his slightly crooked, porcelain white teeth at him as if he knew where Arthur had been and what he had been up to.

"It's none of your business," Arthur said sullenly, pulling open his locker and tossing his books inside to switch them for the ones he needed for all two of his classes that he was going to manage to make it to. "If you must know, I was sick this morning."

Well, it wasn't a lie.

Dom laughed in that way he did when he had someone cornered and followed after Arthur, his lithe frame bouncing as he half-jogged. "Oh, really? Why do you smell like alcohol?"

Arthur grunted in response, trying to ignore him.

"Why'd you tell the teacher to fuck off yesterday? Why are you walking with a limp?" he continued, practically circling him like a vulture. "Don't make me go get Mal. You know you can't lie to Mal."

Arthur frowned because it was true. Mal was Cobb's girlfriend, and she had eyes so honest that he couldn't hold himself together when she was around. It was probably why Cobb liked her so much. She knew what he was really like underneath all the school fame and liked him much better for it.

"Okay…" Arthur sighed, slowing to a stop so Cobb would end his rotation around him. "Look, I kind of… went a little nuts yesterday. I'm okay now though. Just let it go, if you could? I kind of want to put it behind me."

Cobb's smile flickered and faded, and genuine concern appeared at the edges of his face. "What did you do? I mean, you really look bad… no offense."

"I'm fine," he assured, and he wasn't sure if he was lying or not. "Just forget about it."

"But… you have bruises on your collarbone, and you smell like tequila, and you're really pale and sick looking. Come on, Arthur, I won't tell anyone, except for maybe Mal, and you know she won't tell anyone."

"Let it go," Arthur said sternly.

Cobb looked unsatisfied, but he nodded anyway. "All right, whatever," he shrugged. "I'm here if you change your mind though."

"Thanks," Arthur replied, but he didn't really feel all that thankful.

* * *

Eames lifted his head from his sketchbook at the pounding on the door. He grumbled, shoving the book under his elbow and swung it open just a crack, leaving the chain on. "Yusuf," he greeted blandly.

"You ordered it," Yusuf replied, holding up the bag of food. "I could just take it and leave though."

Eames shut the door, took off the chain, and opened it again. "Come in."

Yusuf did, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over the back of the couch. "Your fake names aren't as hilarious as you think they are, _Craven Moorehead_. Couldn't you just say Eames? I mean, what are you, six years old?"

"Six year olds don't crave any such thing, you sick bastard," Eames teased, taking the bag from Yusuf and setting the take-out containers on the table.

"Also, just because I live below you doesn't mean you can call in an order right before I get off of work so I can bring it to you. How do you even know my work schedule?"

"It's the same every week," Eames replied. "Don't blame me that your manager copy-pastes the schedule. Also, I'm flattered that you've accepted that you live below me. At least I get to be the man in our relationship.

"Oh, ha ha, bloody, ha."

Eames snagged a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks out from the bottom of the bag and snapped them apart. "I hope you put it on my tab."

"I did, but you'd damn well better pay it off at the end of the month."

"I will."

They ate together in silence for a few moments, before Yusuf slammed his chopsticks down and said, "Okay, what is _wrong_? You've got this… this _look_ on your face. I don't like it."

Eames swallowed his bite of Lo Mein. "I always look like this. If my face isn't attractive to you, Yusuf, I can assure you I won't lose any sleep over it."

"That's bollocks, Eames. What's up with you? You seem… out of it. Have you been shooting up again?"

"I told you, Yusuf, I don't do that anymore, and I never will. I ought to pop you just for suggesting it. I'm just sleepy."

"Lying around doodling must really wear you out," Yusuf grumbled flatly, and before Eames could stop him, he snagged the sketchbook off of the tabletop that had been thrown there carelessly in lieu of Chinese take-out. "Have you even done any _real_ artwork this month? How are you paying for rent?"

"Give it back!" Eames shouted, snatching for it, but Yusuf angled himself away from Eames's grasp, flipping through it. "Come on, Yusuf, you know how I hate it when people look at my sketchbook. Yusuf, _please_ —"

"Oh, my, this is something… Actually, this is really good… Oh, hey, you've drawn him a few times, haven't you? I haven't seen you use those pastels in at least four months. This is nice."

"You think so?" Eames asked pathetically, still embarrassed.

"Actually, I do. It's the best stuff I've seen from you all year, and these are just doodles. You should have painted."

Eames didn't say anything, signaling to Yusuf that he actually _had_ painted, so Yusuf extended his hand in a way that said _well, let's see it_.

"I don't see what difference it makes," Eames said idly as he got to his feet, padding across the floor and digging it out of its hiding place. "No one's ever going to see it but you and me. Nobody's going to want it. It's really not that good. I mean, it's all right but—"

Yusuf took the canvas from Eames, seemingly captivated by it. "This is excellent, Eames. Your use of light is perfect."

"It's not _perfect_ , Yusuf. It was just a spur of the moment thing."

"Who is this?"

"Nobody special."

" _Nobody special_? Eames, you drew him over and over in your sketchbook, and you painted this yesterday. I'm assuming all those doodles you've done today are studies of him too. You've got ties and eyes all over that fucking thing. Seriously, who is it?"

Eames dug into his Chinese to avoid answering for a few moments, but when Yusuf didn't give up, he swallowed and said, "he's some guy I met at the club yesterday. We went home together. That's it."

"He looks pretty young."

"He has a baby face."

"You're not in love with him, are you?"

"What? _No_!" Eames exclaimed. "What could make you possibly think _that_?"

"Last time you drew someone so extensively, it was Roxanne. You were in love with her, weren't you?"

"She was my _muse_ , and we did heroin together," Eames said flatly. "That wasn't love."

"So, you're not in love with her today, huh? I thought that's what being a muse was."

"Just because you fall in love with every muse you've ever claimed to have doesn't mean that it happens to me. He's beautiful. That's all there is to it."

Yusuf shrugged, setting the painting against the wall so that he could admire it. "I don't have muses. I studied to be a chemist. If you painted like that back and school, you wouldn't have been expelled."

"If they'd let me paint what I wanted, I would have painted like that," Eames replied around a mouthful of food.

Yusuf laughed. "So, are you going to see this lovely little muse again?"

Eames looked at the painting, and hated the little pang of longing in his chest. "Probably not."

"Shame. Your art isn't so shitty when you actually feel like painting."

"Piss off."

* * *

Arthur had to stay in detention after school because of how he'd treated the teacher and skipped class the day before, and she was breathing down his neck for the duration of it. He sat there, staring down into the book he was trying to read, focusing on letter after letter to avoid focusing on the pain in his ass.

_Eames_ … He didn't know his first name. He didn't even know how old he was. It wasn't how he'd planned to give up his first kiss, to give up his virginity, not that those things were supposed to be _planned_ , but…

He didn't regret it, and he couldn't help but feel like he should. His image of Eames in his mind was a surprisingly fond one. He remembered how his hand had gently pressed against the small of his back while he cleaned blood off of the inside of his legs and how his fingers had laced into his hair when he'd burst into tears before leaving his apartment. He could still taste the tequila and cigarettes and something unidentifiable but sweet on his tongue from when it had wrestled with Eames's, could still see the way his blue-gray eyes had stared into his.

He still remembered the burning fire that had settled in his belly upon sighting him the first time.

Arthur let out a shuddered breath, just as the bell rang, dismissing him from detention, and he walked home with his bag in front of his fly.

When he stepped inside, he found a note from his mother, claiming she'd gone out shopping and that he was grounded for not coming home last night. He rolled his eyes because it wasn't as if she could do something to him while she was out fucking around with her latest affair.

He dragged himself upstairs for a shower, stripping out of his smelly uniform. The hot water soothed his skin from the slight chill of the October air outside, but he couldn't completely relax because he couldn't stop thinking about Eames.

He kept remembering things that Eames had done, even how he'd nearly folded him in half, tearing him apart from the inside out, and it made him ache with arousal. He couldn't understand why it made him feel that way, why he was maddened by heat and suddenly having to jerk himself off in desperation until he was coming all over his hand in the shower, screaming because he was alone, and he realized it.

He felt _alive_.

Arthur stood under the spray, gasping for air, and he thought vaguely he might have liked to stay with Eames forever.

Arthur banished that thought as quickly as it came and focused on washing his hair and scrubbing his body until his skin was raw and red. The thought was a foolish, crazy one, and he had had his fun being foolish and crazy the day before. It was time to get back to reality, get back to routine.

…even if the idea of that was unbearable…

"Jesus, what's _wrong_ with me?" he asked his reflection as he slid his pajama shirt around his shoulders. He pressed his fingertips to his own lips, remembering the tingling feeling that still distantly sat there, and sighed.

He tried to do his homework, but he just couldn't concentrate.

When he came downstairs to get something to eat, he discovered his mother was just stumbling inside, laughing while she chatted with someone on her cell phone. "I'll call you later. Okay, bye."

She turned on Arthur then, eyes still hidden by her massive sunglasses, waves of hair slightly askew. "So, you decided to come home today?" she asked, trying to sound annoyed, but he knew that she didn't really care.

"I…" Arthur started and then decided to lie, "I told you yesterday morning at breakfast that I was spending the night at a friend's house. Don't you remember?"

He knew she wouldn't because she never listened to him anyway.

"Oh," his mother said, lifting her sunglasses to the top of her head. "Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot about that. All right then." She hummed as she ascended the stairs, tripping on the fourth one. "Hope you had fun!"

"I did," Arthur mumbled, cleared his throat in discomfiture even though he was alone, and went into the kitchen.

He looked around at the spotless appliances, always there for show, never put to use. It was such a shame, he thought, for anything to go through life without serving any sort of purpose, for sitting back and letting time just roll on by.

He ate burned chicken fried steak, runny macaroni and cheese, and overly crunchy bread. He didn't regret it.

* * *

Even after several bouts of stain remover, Eames couldn't completely get the blood out of his sheets. There was just the faintest twinge of pale brown still there, mostly hidden by the design, but Eames could still see it.

Still, he made up the bed because he couldn't afford to buy new sheets.

As he dropped the pillow over the top of the blankets, he said, "Arthur." He rolled the name around on his tongue, tasting it again.

It really wasn't so bad of a name. On a geek with glasses and acne, it would be embarrassing, but there was something surprisingly _suitable_ when it came to the boy and that name. It just _fit_. He felt bad for teasing him about it.

Eames brushed his hand along the pillow, flattening the wrinkles from how it had been tossed, and he discovered a stray hair, too dark and too long to be his. He caught himself smiling a little fondly at it.

_Fuck_ , he thought as he realized that he actually sort of missed the kid. "Fuck," he said aloud. "He _is_ a kid. Fuck. I need to let this go."

He snagged his sketchbook up as he flopped down onto the bed, messing up the smoothing he'd just done, and opened it to the latest page. On it was a very rough sketch of Arthur's face, the one he'd seen that afternoon at the bar when he'd smiled, dimpling his cheeks in the most flattering way. He wondered how often Arthur smiled like that.

Eames exhaled through his nose and turned back a page to a sketch of him standing by the door, sobbing.

_Poor thing_ , he thought, running a fingertip along the line of a tear.

He wondered what Arthur was doing at that moment.

"Oh, bugger," Eames groaned, tugging his pillow over his face, "get out of my _head_ , you little wanker."

* * *

Arthur lay in bed, drenched in sweat, sighing shakily. He had dreamed of the afternoon before, of Eames fucking into him, grunting while Arthur sobbed beneath him. He had dreamed of it as if he was right back there, experiencing it again and woke up with a sticky mess in his pants.

"Damn it," he gasped, kicking off his clothes as he rolled out of bed and tossing them in the hamper. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist, hoping the thrumming of his heart beat would soon slow.

He shouldn't have been feeling that way, he knew. He shouldn't have been getting _excited_ over all of that. It had hurt. It had hurt badly… but it wasn't necessarily the _act_ at all; it was _Eames_.

It was Eames with his tattoos that Arthur had taken the time to memorize, the light stubble along his jaw, the heavy lips curving into a smirk.

Arthur grunted and touched himself, even though it was far too soon for him to give it another go. He wondered if anyone else felt this way after they had had sex the first time, if it was just something that came with not being a virgin anymore.

Whether it did or it didn't, he hoped it would stop soon because he could _not_ keep living quite like this. He only had so many pairs of pants after all.

He was overcome then with dismay when he realized that he had absolutely no one he could talk to about it. He could have called Cobb, but he was too embarrassed to tell him what he'd done. He didn't know Cobb's stance on homosexuality. Talking to Mal would be even worse on the embarrassment scale because she had the tendency to make him feel guilty without saying anything. He knew she wouldn't approve of his actions. Talking to his mom? The idea itself was hilarious if not a bit depressing. His father?

As if.

Arthur pulled on another pair of pajama pants and curled up under the blankets, and he thought of Eames's eyes, flickering as he looked up at Arthur and down at his sketchbook.

"Hey…" he said, lifting his head up off of the pillow. "I never got my drawing."

He wouldn't pretend it wasn't a stupid excuse to see him again, but he still got dressed in a pair of skinny jeans, a gray t-shirt, and a red hooded sweatshirt, and caught the last bus into the city. He knew it was stupid and foolish, but apparently he hadn't gotten it out of his system yet. He convinced himself, sitting in that seat on the bus, that all he really needed was to see Eames one more time, and then he would be fine.

This would be the last time.

All he needed to do was see him one more time and he'd be over him.

He kept telling himself that all the way up the stairs.

He stopped himself with his fist hovering over the door. "What am I _doing_?" he whispered to himself, running a hand over his hair. "This is so dumb. I don't even… know this guy, and I shouldn't have even met him in the first place. I must be out of my fucking mind."

He looked back down the hallway where he'd come up, at the several flights of stairs, at the flickering florescent light.

"Damn it," he whispered and knocked.

He heard shuffling from inside, and his heart fluttered up into his throat. "Yusuf, s'that you? I told you to piss off. I'm not—" he opened the door with the chain still on and silenced immediately.

"H… Hello…" Arthur said awkwardly.

Eames's jaw went slack for a long, _long_ minute. "What… What are you doing here?" he finally asked, breathless.

"Um—" Arthur yelped, shoulders stiffening, "I uh… I just… um…"

"I see," Eames said flatly and shut the door. Arthur thought for a moment that Eames was shutting him out, but then the door was opening all the way and Eames said, "Well, come in then. Don't just stand out there looking like an idiot."

Arthur trotted in nervously and waited until Eames had closed and locked the door to turn around and look at him. Instead, his eyes caught sight of Eames's latest painting leaned up against the wall.

"Oh, wow," he gasped, crouching down to look at it better. "Is this me?"

"Ah… yes," Eames said awkwardly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweat pants. "It's just a little something that I did while you were sleeping. Mind telling me what you're doing here at…" he checked his watch, "nine forty-five?"

Arthur rose to his full height and shifted from foot to foot. "I just…" he looked down at the floor, feeling the tips of his ears burn. "I realized that I gave you my virginity, and I don't even know anything about you… I just… wanted to see you again. I'm sorry. I could go if you—"

"I told you stop apologizing," Eames scolded. "It's all right. I was awake anyway."

Arthur wiped his mouth on his wrist, nodding. "I came to get my drawing too… at least, that was my excuse on the way over here."

Eames huffed, and smiled, gaze softening. "You _are_ an idiot, aren't you?"

"Please don't be mad at me," Arthur said. "I just wanted to know more about you so I don't feel like… like I was just some one night stand."

Eames blinked once, and then a second time, and then he laughed. "Oh, darling, darling," he chuckled and grazed his hand across Arthur's jaw. "You shouldn't feel that way. I'm so sorry…"

"How old are you?" Arthur asked, leaning into his touch, eyes fluttering closed.

"Twenty-two."

"How long have you lived in the U.S.?"

"Since I was eighteen. I came here to go to school but flunked out in my first year."

Arthur's eyes opened then, and focus seemed to return to his gaze as he stared into Eames's eyes. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course."

Eames would have answered any question Arthur gave him because he just couldn't get over how pleased he was to see him again. He wasn't sure what it was that brought forth the affection except that maybe he just enjoyed feeling appreciated. Maybe it was just that as soon as he caught sight of Arthur, his hands were itching to create.

"When you… When you lost your virginity, did you… think about that person a lot after?"

Eames raised an eyebrow.

Arthur licked his lips. "You know… _think_ … about them."

" _Oh_ ," Eames replied. "I don't know. I mean, that was a long time ago. I guess I did. Why?"

Arthur adjusted his shoulders, and his face was beat red as he admitted, "I can't… stop thinking about you. I hate to say this, but… when I'm with you, I just feel… _alive_ … I don't have anyone I can talk to about this, so I guess it's just hard for me to get it out of my head."

Eames exhaled slowly, and his hand lingered on the curve of his neck. He could feel Arthur's pulse racing underneath the skin. "Oh, bugger," Eames said, and then he was kissing Arthur.

Arthur kissed back feverishly, fingers clutching into Eames's t-shirt, moaning inside Eames's mouth.

Not once did it come to mind that it was a mistake. All that mattered was that exact moment.

He didn't even notice until Eames groaned that he'd been grinding his hips against Eames, and he pulled back, nearly toppling over, horrified. "Oh, God, I… I'm so sorry. I know I shouldn't—I wasn't thinking! Eames, I—"

Eames pushed Arthur against the wall and silenced him by licking back into his mouth, and Arthur's eyes rolled back in his head. He whimpered against Eames's tongue, jeans becoming unbearably tight, and he started trembling from it.

Eames broke the kiss, hovering just inches away from Arthur's face, gasping. "What is it? What's wrong?" he asked, panting.

"Please touch me," Arthur begged, pressing his hips against Eames. "Please… I'm sober, and I promise I won't tell."

"I'll do you one better," Eames whispered, voice deep and rumbling through to Arthur's very core. He dropped to his knees, forgetting his morals and cares and fears and everything but _Arthur_. He had a hell of a time getting Arthur's jeans unbuttoned, and when he finally pulled them down to his knees, his prick sprang forward, already leaking pre-come.

"Please, _please_ ," Arthur pleaded.

Eames swallowed him straight to the hilt, and Arthur squeaked. Eames pulled back, laving around the head and swallowed him again, bobbing up and down. Arthur was making small noises that started to rise in volume, and his hands grasped against the wall for some kind of non-existent support. Eames had to hold onto his hips to keep him from bucking forward and choking him.

Arthur shouted out and then drew out Eames's name in a glorious whine. "Eames… _Eames_ … I'm… going to… I'm ah…"

…and then he was coming harshly down Eames's throat in hot, wet spurts, crying out in surrender.

When Eames released him, Arthur crumpled to the floor, unable to hold himself up on his jellylike limbs.

Eames swallowed and leaned his forehead against Arthur's, breathing heavily. "How was that?" he asked, as if he needed to.

Arthur responded by kissing him again. "Oh my God," he mumbled as he pulled away. "Can you do that to me again, like, every day?"

Eames laughed. "Can you stand up now?"

"If you help me."

Arthur wrapped his arms around Eames's neck and let Eames pull him up. "Go sit," Eames said, pointing at the kitchen table. "I've just got to change my trousers."

Arthur blinked lazily and did what Eames asked after pulling his jeans back up. He stared at Eames's painting while Eames dropped his soiled clothes to the floor and slipped on a clean pair of boxer shorts.

"So," Eames said as he returned, digging a bottle of water out of the fridge and downing a large gulp of it before continuing, "I'm assuming that's _not_ what you expected to happen."

"I can't help it," Arthur said almost drunkenly. "The moment I saw you I was so fucking turned on I thought I was going to die."

"You are a crazy person," Eames said, handing over the bottle so Arthur could drink. He watched Arthur's Adam's apple bob when he swallowed. "You were that attracted to me?"

"I'd never seen anybody like you before," Arthur admitted. "I don't know if I ever will."

"Who me? I'm a dime a dozen. I'm nothing special at all."

"I don't believe that," Arthur said, leaning forward on the table, and Eames's expression was unreadable. "I don't believe that you're nothing special. I _know_ that's not true. A nobody who's not special couldn't paint something like that." He pointed at the painting. "I'm the average person here. I don't have any redeeming qualities. I can't even cook."

Eames dug a cigarette out of the pack on the table and lit it with the Zippo next to it. "You flatter me. I'm not that great a painter. Art like that only springs forth from something beautiful."

Arthur blushed, and Eames took a mental snapshot of the image to draw later. "My inspiration goes crazy when you're around," Eames admitted.

Arthur pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it off of Eames's. He didn't cough this time. "You're lying."

"I'm serious."

Eames fetched his sketchbook and showed Arthur the sketches of him, and Arthur stared, enamored by each one. "Wow…" he whispered.

Eames leaned over Arthur's shoulder, breath on the shell of his ear, and pointed to each mistake. "They're all right. With you here now, I realize that things aren't all quite right. Your eyes are a bit closer together- I just can't seem to get them right, and this freckle's a bit further down your neck. You have lovely hands though. I think I at least got those right."

Arthur grinned, charmed, and Eames fought back the urge to sigh dreamily. Arthur had an amazing smile, and that was all it was, he reminded himself.

"Will you be my model, Arthur?" Eames asked then, trailing feather light kisses down his jaw and neck, Arthur shivering at the contact. "You can come here after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and I'll draw you beautiful pictures."

Arthur sighed as Eames's fingers traced along his ribs. "Okay…"

"I'd say you could come every day, but I work late every other day of the week."

"I'll come…" Arthur breathed.

"I know you will… but I do hope you'll make the trip to my flat as well."

Arthur laughed, and Eames was entranced by his dimples and his teeth and the way little wrinkles appeared at the edges of his eyes.

"Come on, now," Eames said. "I suppose I should drive you home."


	3. Bite Hard (part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Three

Arthur clutched around Eames's waist, face pushed between his shoulder blades, and while he was sitting there and listening to the rumble of the motorcycle's engine, he thought that he fit right into Eames's curve, like he was a missing puzzle piece that had found its other side. Eames was still warm beneath his hands, like he was a furnace wrapped in clothes.

The ride on the bus had been so long, and yet the drive back to his house seemed unbearably short. He had to unravel himself from Eames's back far too soon for his tastes and step off the bike into the cold, Eames-less air.

"Jesus Christ," Eames said, staring up at the massive house. "Your closet's probably bigger than my apartment."

Arthur chuckled, turning around with his hands in his pockets and leaned over, pressing his nose to Eames's. "Thanks for the ride," he said.

"You stay out of trouble now," Eames replied, smirking.

"Not fucking likely," Arthur said, seizing him by the lapels of his jacket and pulling him in for a long kiss. When he pulled away, Eames was dazed. "Do I still kiss like an amateur?"

"You're getting better all the time."

"I'll keep practicing."

Arthur had no issues sleeping the rest of the night.

* * *

"Morning, Yusuf," Eames greeted in the lobby of his apartment building, swinging the strap of his bag over his shoulder on his way to work.

"You're chipper this morning for someone who is about head off to a double shift," Yusuf mentioned, jogging a little to catch up with him from the stairs. "What's with that dopey smile?"

"This is how I always smile," Eames said.

"I hope for the sake of your future love affairs that that's not true," Yusuf replied flatly and paused as recollection came over him. "Did you sell a painting?"

"Nope, not yet, but I've started on one that I think will be brill."

"You… You saw that boy again, didn't you? Your muse," Yusuf decided, crossing his arms over his chest as he chased him to the parking lot.

"Of course not," Eames waved him off. "Can't I be in a good mood without there being a bloody reason once in a while?"

"No, no you can't."

"It was rhetorical question, Yusuf."

"What's with the sunshine and rainbows and butterflies, Eames? Really, what?"

"I think those things are all in your head, Yusuf. You should really go see a shrink." Eames slipped his helmet on and started the engine. "Have a good day a work, dear! See you when I get home! Hugs and kisses!"

"Oh, fuck off, Eames!" Yusuf shouted, but Eames was already zipping out of the parking lot, leaving Yusuf in the dust.

Eames laughed to himself, feeling the 'fuck off' even though he couldn't hear it. Nothing Yusuf could have said would spoil his mood. It was the first time he'd woken up with a smile on his face in… he honestly couldn't remember. He supposed it was because he woke up thinking of Arthur's mischievous little grin and it was contagious. After dropping him off at his house, Eames had gone home and slathered paint all over a canvas, messy and yet perfect to his feelings. Every splatter looked like Arthur's hands, long bony fingers reaching out to touch and touch and touch. Eames had added in more splatters to signify his own hands, touching and touching and touching Arthur's hands and by that time he realized he needed to go to sleep before he pulled an all-nighter.

Eames convinced himself that he wasn't giddy, just hysterical after only three hours of sleep.

Still, on any other day, he would be frowning harshly by the time he arrived at the steakhouse where he currently waited tables. Any other day, he hated the place with a white hot intensity, but his emotions were just too preoccupied.

"Morning, Eames," Ariadne, a fellow server, greeted when he stepped inside, making a beeline for the bathroom to change into the uniform he had shoved into his bag. "You seem self-satisfied. You get laid or something?"

"As a lady, you really shouldn't talk like that," Eames told her with a smirk. "You're what, seventeen now?"

"I'm nineteen, almost twenty," she replied flatly. "Why else would I be here on a Friday? Don't the sweet, impressionable seventeen year olds have school to go to?"

Eames shrugged. "How's that 'taking a year off to discover yourself' working for you?"

"It'd be better if I could afford to travel."

"Discovering yourself comes from the inside, Ari, not the outside," he said, the bathroom door shutting behind him. Ariadne had no need for modesty, a bohemian in her own right, and opened the door to shove her head inside the crack.

"You're waning philosophical, Eames. That's dangerous."

"I can think of more dangerous things than philosophy," Eames laughed, tugging his t-shirt over his head and throwing it over the sink. "Lying is dangerous, stealing, um… fighting, unless it's for a good reason… Flirting, that's dangerous." He pulled his black button-down over his shoulders. "Ah… let's see, what else is dangerous? Oh, I know, beautiful people. Beautiful people are dangerous."

"Don't you like to do all of those things?" she smirked. "Lying, stealing, fighting, flirting, beautiful people, yeah you do all of those things."

Eames tucked his buttoned shirt into his slacks. "I'm a regular rebel, aren't I?" He wet his hands and ran them through his hair, calming the mess it had become from the helmet. "I'm sure the tattoos and motorcycle gave that away. Oh, yes, driving fast is also dangerous."

* * *

Arthur's attention was still nonexistent at school, but he found himself doodling in his notebooks, smiling, no longer stiff-backed with agitation. He didn't grow frustrated from the sound of other students whispering or get caught up in the noise of the ticking clock. He floated from class to class like gravity had decided to leave him be for the day.

It didn't go unnoticed.

Arthur discovered this when he shut his locker door and found Cobb leaning there waiting, lips curled into a smirk.

"You're walking on sunshine," Cobb teased.

"Excuse me?" Arthur squeaked. He was relieved Mal wasn't with Cobb. He might have blurted it out right there if she had been.

"You've done a one-eighty from yesterday. What happened to you?"

" _Nothing_ ," Arthur said in exasperation, turning on his heel to escape Cobb. "Can I not be in a good mood once in a while? You're ruining it, by the way."

"Are you kidding me? I mean, come on, man, you've been walking around all day like you got your dick sucked, and you expect me to not question that?"

Arthur's cock twitched a little at the very clear memory of that, and he had to bite down on his tongue to keep from letting out a sound. "Jesus, Cobb, what does that even—"

Cobb made a face. Arthur squirmed under his gaze.

"Wait, are you serious? It was just an expression, but you actually—Did you really?"

"You're being ridiculous. I never even made such a dumb fucking claim. You know what assuming does to people, right?"

"Then what are you so chipper about? Don't make me go get Mal."

"Stop threatening me with that."

"I would if it stopped working. Seriously, what's up?" Cobb's amusement had faded again to a poorly hidden look of worry. "Is something going on?"

"No, nothing's going on. Would you just drop it already? I just happen to be in a good mood. Let it go, Cobb."

Cobb huffed but didn't push the matter further. He knew when to quit, and Arthur was grateful for that. Still, he didn't appreciate how Cobb's concerned face made him feel guilty.

Arthur slipped into the bathroom, Cobb at his heels and went to take a leak. The two of them stood separated by one urinal. "Hey, Cobb," Arthur said awkwardly.

"Yeah?"

"Um… have you ever actually, uh… you know… had your dick sucked?"

Cobb went red and stared at the wall, clearing his throat. "Okay, I get it, I embarrassed you. Fuck, I was just kidding."

"No really. Have you?" Arthur was a little embarrassed asking. He pulled his pants back up and went to wash his hands.

"I uh—well, um… No. I hear it fucking _rocks_ though."

Arthur dried his hands, numb all over from the shock that he'd done something before Cobb, before _Cobb_. He passed by Cobb as Cobb headed to the sink, smacking his shoulder lightly and said nothing more than, "It totally is."

"Wait, what?" Cobb shouted after him, but Arthur had already left.

* * *

Wednesday couldn't come soon enough for Arthur. He spent his class time bouncing his leg, doodling, or on occasion actually paying attention because he needed to do anything other than fantasize. Fantasizing was reserved for time at home, since he was usually alone anyway, and he'd discovered his mind could be incredibly filthy if given the time and the right idea. He'd been told in the past that he had no imagination; apparently, he just hadn't been applying it properly.

Cobb still bugged him occasionally about what was up with him, but he wouldn't push it when Arthur told him to back off. He could tell it was driving him insane, but Arthur just wouldn't. He _couldn't_ … even if he sort of wanted to. He wanted to talk about Eames. It made Wednesday not feel so fucking far away.

He fucked his hand intensely before bed every night so that he wouldn't soil his underwear, and he grunted and groaned and sweated. It was nothing compared to the real thing, but he did it anyway.

Finally, _finally_ , Wednesday came.

Arthur spent most of the class staring at the clock, and unfortunately time had seemed to slow to a near stop. His skin was too hot, and he was having trouble focusing on anything other than getting away from the school, from his house, from the world for a little while.

The bell might have sounded like a chorus of a thousand angels.

"Hey, where are you going?" Cobb called after him as Arthur practically bolted out of the door.

"Library!" he shouted, not looking back. "I've got an essay to write! See you tomorrow! Tell Mal that we need to hang out soon!"

He didn't have time for Cobb. He was already half hard in his pants. He took a cab into the city, bouncing both of his legs, and when he was a block from Eames's, he paid the driver and climbed out. He took the stairs two at a time and rammed his fist on the door without a second of hesitation.

"Hello?" Eames said as he swung the door open, but he didn't have time to say anything else before Arthur was attacking him in a fierce kiss.

Eames shut the door with his back, kissing Arthur back with surprise, and Arthur wrapped his legs around Eames's waist, choking on desperate sounds. They didn't stop kissing until Eames had dumped Arthur onto the bed.

"Nice to see you too," Eames greeted through gasps for air.

"I missed you," Arthur said. It made his heart ache a little.

Eames smiled softly and pushed his hands into the mattress above Arthur's shoulders, hovering over him. "Oh, _really_?" he asked, pressing his lips to Arthur's cheekbone.

Arthur responded by whimpering and arching. Eames kissed down his cheekbone, down his chin, down his neck, down his chest after hiking up his shirt, licking and grazing his teeth just when Arthur didn't expect it, and it made his yelps jump a half-octave.

"You're already so close," Eames said, lifting his head from one of Arthur's nipples and brushing a sweat-slicked hair out of the boy's eyes. "You really _did_ miss me."

Arthur tilted his head back, revealing more of his long, pale neck, and barely sounded out, " _Eames_."

"Oh, darling, don't worry, we'll get to it. I'm going to take my time though. I want to memorize every face you make."

Arthur laughed a little, but his voice was so hoarse it barely came out. Eames left him on the bed to undress while he grabbed lubricant and a condom out of the bedside table and then settled back in the bed in-between Arthur's legs.

He slicked up his fingers and pushed one inside to the first knuckle, and Arthur was as tight as ever. "Just relax," Eames said.

Arthur swallowed and nodded, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment.

Eames thrust his finger in and out, curling it ever so slightly, and soon he shoved a second one in, fucking him leisurely with his fingers so that by the time he added a third finger, every inch of Arthur's body was coated in a sheen of sweat. Just when he was sure Arthur was about to come right there, Eames pulled out completely.

Arthur looked at Eames in horror, eyes so black that Eames couldn't see the whites of them anymore.

"Don't want you to come so fast," Eames explained teasingly. "That's what teenagers do."

"F-fuck," Arthur stammered, voice straining, and watched while Eames rolled the condom on mockingly slow and slathered himself with a generous amount of lube. He leaned over Arthur and kissed him on the forehead, on the tip of his nose, on his mouth, just barely licking against Arthur's teeth before pulling away to hoist Arthur's legs up around his waist.

"Are you ready?" Eames asked, and all Arthur could do was nod, even though some of that tense feeling had faded a bit from the lack of contact. He was pretty sure that was Eames's intention, but it was hard for him to think at all through the haze.

Eames shoved himself inside, just a little, testing it. Arthur's breath hitched. Eames thrust in and out, going deeper each time, until he grazed against Arthur's prostate.

Arthur squeaked, cock leaking pre-come all over his stomach, and he was _right there_ , so Eames pulled out completely.

"This is torture!" Arthur complained, his voice shrill and scratchy.

Eames laughed, combing Arthur's hair out of his face with his fingers. "It'll be worth it, love, I promise," Eames said, kissing him again before adding gruffly, "I'm going to make you rattle these windows."

Arthur just let out a large breath then, eyes rolling back into his head. Eames pushed back in.

Eames rocked back and forth against Arthur, slowly at first, building speed. Arthur was mumbling incoherently, his only audible words _Please_ and _Fuck_ and _Eames_. Arthur's heat was a bit intoxicating to Eames as well, and he was having trouble keeping his pace, but he maintained it with an iron will. He'd been so brutal to the boy before when it had just been a sudden, _must have you_ thing, and he had the stains on the sheets to prove it. Maybe he felt a little guilty about hurting him.

Eames slammed against Arthur, feeling it building in his own extremities, and Arthur was gripping and pulling at the bed sheets for some kind of stability that he couldn't find. His hands seemed to change their minds and wrap around Eames's shoulders instead. He was bucking into every one of Eames's thrusts now, moans increasing in volume with each one, and Eames's iron will cracked and fell apart right then and there.

Arthur's nails dug into Eames's shoulders as he hit Arthur's prostate over and over again, and Eames could tell he was trying to hold on just because he was afraid Eames would pull out again. The heels of his feet were digging into Eames's back, and he was shouting now, begging and begging, and Eames could no longer deny him.

Arthur's cry echoed off of the walls of the apartment when he came, back arching, eyes squeezed shut, and Eames came only seconds after because of it.

Arthur collapsed on the bed, feeling boneless after Eames had pulled out, and his chest was heaving dramatically. "I don't think…" he finally managed to say breathlessly after a few minutes. "I don't think that much has ever come out before."

Eames ran his fingers along the mess on Arthur's stomach and trailed them up to Arthur's lips. Arthur took Eames's fingers into his mouth and sucked and licked them clean. "That's disgusting," he said, but he was smiling in content. "Fuck, I need a cigarette."

Eames fetched him one and even lit it for him, puffing on it before placing it between Arthur's lips. While he was behind the curtain in the bathroom, Arthur called out, finally finding his voice, "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"It's just something that comes with practice," Eames assured him, appearing with a wet wash cloth. He sat on the edge of the bed, slowly cleaning off Arthur's stomach and chest.

Arthur hummed serenely and watched smoke drift up to the ceiling for a moment. "What were you like when you were my age, Eames?"

"You make it sound like it was such a long time ago," Eames chuckled, "Oh, I don't know…"

"Tell me," Arthur urged, giggling when Eames's fingers traced across a particularly ticklish spot under his left pectoral.

"Ahm… well, I guess I wasn't much different than you. I was a scrawny little thing. I got teased a lot. Everyone thought I looked like a girl."

"What? That's insane. You're the manliest guy I know," Arthur laughed. Eames dropped the rag on the floor and curled his arm around Arthur's waist, nuzzling against his neck.

"I was a bit of a late bloomer, I guess. My voice was still pretty high pitched until I was nearly seventeen, and with these lips, I probably really did resemble a girl. I guess I'm overcompensating now."

Arthur dropped ashes into the tray on the bedside table before tilting his head downwards to let Eames kiss him.

"Pounding ass is how you overcompensate?" Arthur smirked against his lips.

"I guess so," Eames snorted.

* * *

By the time Arthur was on his third cigarette, Eames was sketching. The picture was of Arthur propped against the headboard, hair in disarray, long fingers curled around a cigarette. The late afternoon light spread out across Arthur's lithe limbs and the sheet just barely reached his hips. Eames was beaming at him as he penciled in the thin trail of visible pubic hair below his navel. "You are such a beautiful specimen," he marveled.

Arthur lowered the cigarette from his mouth, blowing smoke out the side. "You're out of your mind."

"Maybe," Eames agreed, "but it doesn't make it less true. You're an artist's _dream_ , Arthur."

"Can I move? I need to take a whiz."

Eames turned the sketchbook around to show Arthur the finished rough, a smattering of pastel revealing the light. "Go ahead… I'm looking forward to painting this."

Arthur unfurled and clambered out of the bed, and Eames watched him like a hawk while he crossed the room, so he couldn't help but strut a little bit.

"It's a shame you have to wear those baggy trousers with your uniform, Arthur," Eames said, slouching in his chair. "You have such a lovely rear."

Arthur broke out into a cheek-hurting smile, dimpling his cheeks, and Eames had to get up and kiss both of them.

They ended up fucking against the wall, Arthur sighing into Eames's ear.

When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, Arthur was sprawled out on the couch, and Eames was laying out the lines for his painting on canvas. Eames was dressed, but Arthur seemed to prefer walking around naked, and no one was more fine with that than Eames.

"I am _starving_ ," Arthur said suddenly. "Fuck, I didn't even eat lunch today."

"I can order some take-out," Eames offered.

"Awesome."

Eames put down his pencil and went to dig out his phone, dialing the Chinese place. He ordered, asking them to put it on his tab and have Yusuf bring it to him when he got off work and then found that Arthur had left the couch. The shower came on right on cue.

Eames nabbed up his sketchbook and followed after.

"You are obsessed," Arthur joked when Eames pulled back the shower door to watch. The light bouncing off of the blue tiles on the wall reflected onto Arthur's shoulders. Eames immediately set to work.

Arthur laughed at him, smoothing his hair back with water. He poured a handful of Eames's coconut shampoo and scrubbed it through, and Eames memorized it as best as he could while throwing down the rough sketch to finish later. He was almost out of paper, he noted.

"All that stuff's gonna get damaged from the heat, isn't it?" Arthur asked, tossing wet strands of hair out of his eyes. Eames set the sketchbook just outside of the curtain and stepped under the spray, forgetting that he was fully clothed and that his fingers were smudged with pastel.

"It hasn't even begun to get warm in here," Eames mouthed against Arthur's neck.

They were interrupted by a knocking on the door.

"Oh, bugger," Eames complained, leaving Arthur. Arthur stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist, and peeked out from behind the wall.

"Really, Eames, _Dan Gleebitz_?" Yusuf asked flatly, holding up the bag of food. "Everyone up there knows it's you. Stop giving stupid names."

"If they were as annoyed by it as you are, they would have just written Eames on the order. I think you're the only one up there without a sense of humor. Hand over my dinner and vamoose."

"Suddenly, I'm not a welcome dinner guest? Some of that is mine, you know."

"I'm working."

"That never stopped you be—why are you all wet?"

"I just got out of the shower."

"In your clothes? Jesus, Eames, get some fucking sleep."

Arthur leaned out further to try to get a better view, but his foot slipped on a puddle Eames had left behind, and he ungracefully face-planted into the floor, knocking over a pile of art supplies.

Eames turned at the sound strictly out of impulse.

"See you," Eames said, snagging the food from Yusuf's hands and slamming the door on him. He put the chain on before Yusuf could force himself inside.

"TOSSER!" Yusuf shouted through the door. "Don't pretend that I don't know what you've been doing in there! If the shouting doesn't stop, I'm calling the cops!"


	4. Bite Hard (part 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Four

"Are you pissed off at me?" Arthur asked over his fried rice. His shirt was sticking to his back, his hair still dripping, but he didn't notice over the overwhelming bloom of guilt in his stomach.

"No," Eames replied, but he certainly sounded pissed off when he said it.

"I didn't mean to fall down. I mean, it was an accident."

"I know."

"I just wanted to see who you were talking to. He's your friend, right? He talks like he's your friend."

"He's Yusuf. He lives in the flat directly below. We've known each other for years."

"Oh… Yeah, I thought I heard he had an accent too…" Arthur picked at his food for a few more minutes before saying, "You _are_ pissed at me."

"I'm not mad, Arthur," Eames replied in exasperation, running a hand over his hair. "We have to be careful with this though. You understand how much we're risking with this, how much _I'm_ risking. We're playing a dangerous game here. We can't just go all in."

"I'm so—" Arthur stopped himself. "I'll be more careful."

"If you want to meet Yusuf, you'll need to be fully clothed, at least," Eames sighed. "He also thinks you're older than you are."

"Maybe I should get a fake ID."

Eames nodded, mulling the idea over in his mind. "That'd probably be a good idea. I bet you'd look older if you'd dress older too."

Arthur smiled, relieved to feel the heaviness lifting from the air between them. "Okay. I'll go buy some new clothes."

The silence that followed was much more companionable.

"So, Eames," Arthur said, grabbing a piece of gyoza with his chopsticks. "Do you do any other kind of art besides painting and drawing and stuff? I mean, do you do photography or sculpture or anything like that?"

"I had to do a lot of different things in school, but I never had a knack for it." Eames stood and paced across the floor to a box in the corner, opening it up and digging through it until he produced a camera. "I spent over two hundred dollars on this thing, and I don't do a thing with it." He handed it to Arthur, sitting back down to his meal. "I suppose I should take some of this to Yusuf. It is _his_ , after all."

"Can I have it?" Arthur asked, looking through the viewfinder of the camera at Eames. "I'll take nude photos for you."

Eames choked on his food a little but then laughed. "It's not doing any good sitting in that box. If you can handle the batteries, you can do whatever you like with it.

"Cool," Arthur said, hanging it around his neck. "I guess I owe you."

"I can think of a way you can make it up to me."

* * *

"When you said I'd make it up to you, this isn't exactly what I had in mind," Arthur said, leaning over the window sill to peer out the window. Eames sat a few feet behind him with his canvas and paints, admiring Arthur's ass through the thin fabric of his shirt. The cotton had been wetted down again so that it clung to his skin and revealed every line and curve on his body.

"You're here to be my model, darling," Eames replied, cleaning his brush and dipping it into a glob of paint. "I've got to get something done, don't I? This is my livelihood we're talking about here."

"Are you seriously going to sell these paintings?" Arthur asked, glancing over his shoulder at Eames.

"If somebody buys them, sure," Eames said. "I've taken care to keep all of the full nudes from behind to keep your anonymity so far."

"You just like my backside."

"That too, but really, I adore your face, so don't accuse me of such things. It was your face that attracted me in the first place."

"A face seen through the drunken haze of tequila?"

"Piss off."

Arthur turned back to the window. "You know, if someone told me a few weeks ago that I would be doing this, I wouldn't have believed them."

"I'm lucky I found you myself. Another artist might have snatched you up and posed you for their masterpieces."

"I'm hardly that noticeable. I think I had a little something more than looks to hold your interests."

"What makes you think you're so unnoticed?"

"Experience…" Arthur said quietly, and Eames didn't respond to that. Arthur stared out into the city lights, glimmering amongst the dark blanket of night and thought back to that first time with Eames, the way he had cried because no one seemed to see him amongst the crowds of people and amongst the organized chaos of society that he lived in, how everything in the universe seemed to be more important.

He knew now why he had gone back to Eames.

Out of the crowds, out of the dark, Eames had _seen_ him. Eames had made him feel like there was no one more important in the world. Eames was risking so much just so Arthur could be with him, and Eames thought he was beautiful no matter how average he believed himself to be.

Arthur dropped his chin to his chest, blinking back the mist that blurred his vision. His fingers twitched on the sill. He sucked on his bottom lip. Nothing seemed to make the realization go away. He wasn't sure if the tears were from sadness over his situation, or happiness that someone _cared_ , but he thought that maybe he knew when Eames's arms snaked around him and pulled him away from the window. "What's wrong?"

Arthur pressed his face into Eames's chest, fingers gripping into the front of his shirt, and he sniffed, shaking his head.

Eames combed through Arthur's hair with his fingers, kissed the top of his head. "I'm finished with it, if you'd like to see," he said quietly.

"Okay," he said weakly, muffled against Eames's t-shirt.

The painting was beautiful. "I really don't know how you can see me this way," Arthur said, ghosting his finger just above the spine of the illustration. "I don't think I look like this."

"Sometimes all you need is to see someone else's perspective," Eames hummed against the back of Arthur's neck where he placed feather light kisses after every other word. " _How can my Muse want subject to invent while thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse_ ," he quoted.

"Didn't know you were a fan of Shakespeare," Arthur whispered, leaning back into Eames's touch, letting his damp shirt fall to the floor.

"I'm not, but I am quite the fan of yours."

Arthur couldn't help but feel just the slightest flutter of panic settle in his chest as he realized he very well might have been starting to fall, and he wasn't sure if anyone could catch him before it was too late.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Arthur nearly fell off the sink he was sitting on, choking on smoke.

Cobb was in the doorway of the bathroom, stunned.

Arthur looked at the cigarette between his fingers and quickly hid it behind his back, as if that would erase Cobb's short term memory.

"What're you doing in here?" Arthur yelped.

"I saw you come in here, came to see how you were. I didn't see you walking to school this morning. You smoke now?"

Arthur blushed. "Sometimes."

"Mal is going to yell at you," Cobb said, snagging the cigarette from Arthur. "She already yells at me for it, and I'm just her boyfriend. She treats you like a fucking _son_." He puffed off of it and handed it back. "Weren't you always against doing stuff like this?"

"I don't remember having a strong opinion of anything one way or the other," Arthur said blandly, taking a long drag on it. "It just loosens me up when I'm stressed. It's not like I'm shooting up or cutting myself. I'm not self-destructing or anything."

"Are you sure about that?"

Arthur gave Cobb an appraising look while Cobb just raised his eyebrows at him, revealing nothing. "What do you—"

"You've been acting really weird lately, Arthur, but you keep saying it's nothing, it's nothing. _Something_ is going on. Are your parents getting divorced?"

"My parents don't see each other enough to discuss that," Arthur huffed. "Seriously, Cobb, I'm _fine_. I'm better now than I have been in a while, actually."

"You left me no choice," Cobb sighed, stepping back to the door and pulling it open, and Arthur groaned when Mal stomped inside, large eyes wide with determination.

"You bastard," Arthur grumbled at Cobb while Cobb locked the door.

"Arthur, _mon cher_ , I'm surprised at you," Mal said, disappointment thickening her French accent. Mal had moved to the states with her father three years ago and had dated Cobb for two and a half of those years. From the moment Arthur had met her, he'd been unable to deny anything she asked. Mal had a way of getting underneath a person's skin to the point that disappointing her was physically painful. Her grip was particularly tight on Arthur, second only to Cobb who would have willingly done anything for her whether he felt guilty or not.

Arthur put out the cigarette, blushing with shame, and hopped down off of the sink. "I'm sorry, Mal," he said.

"I do hope this isn't Dom's influence," she said, turning her eyes sharply to Cobb by the door. He shrank a little under her gaze, and when she looked back at Arthur, Arthur saw him raise his arms in confusion, not knowing how he was suddenly in trouble too. "Arthur, please, tell me what's going on. You know we won't judge you. We're your friends, and we're worried about you."

Arthur swallowed hard but realized there wasn't much he could say because he couldn't honestly come up with a concrete answer. He couldn't lie to her ever, but he wasn't positive of what the truth was, so he said the only thing he could come up with. "I'm _alive_."

This earned him looks from both Cobb and Mal.

"I…" he continued, running a hand through his hair, "I'm… leaving behind monotony of the same day over and over and _over_ again. I'm doing things I never thought possible. I'm seeing, and I'm… being _seen_ for the very first time. You don't need to worry about me. I'm good. I'm… _great_ , even. Things are actually kind of awesome right now, so please… let me have this. I need this. I can't… I can't go back to how I was. I was drowning."

"What brought all of this about?" Cobb asked, leaning against the door, and he seemed more concerned now than ever.

Arthur smiled. "Someone taught me to look at things from a different perspective."

"Who?" Mal asked.

"You don't know him," Arthur told them. "He's this really cool guy that I met in the city. He's more human than anyone else I've met in this godforsaken town… you know, besides you guys. He's… he has _passions_ and _desires_ and… he goes after what he wants. He doesn't care about money or reputation, and he lives for his dreams, and it's fucking _glorious_!"

Arthur's voice bounced off of the walls of the bathroom, and it was only then that he realized how worked up he'd gotten over it. He clamped his mouth shut, flushing bright red from what he was sure was head to toe and looked down at the floor.

"Arthur," Mal said quietly.

The bell rang, rattling all of them.

"I've got to get to class," Arthur said, shoving passed Cobb and escaping their eyes for the moment.

* * *

Arthur didn't tell Eames about Cobb and Mal's confrontation, but Eames could tell he was bothered over something.

"This isn't about what I said yesterday, is it?" Eames asked.

Arthur looked up from his plate of reheated Chinese take-out. "Huh? What is? No, I'm fine. I don't know what you're talking about."

Eames leaned his cheek onto his fist and smirked. "You're in your head a lot. Something's bugging you."

"It's… It's just my friends," Arthur admitted. "They think I've been acting different, and they're worried about me."

"Well, they have a right to be," Eames teased, "what with you smoking cancer sticks and committing sodomy and whatnot." Eames stopped joking when Arthur's response was to slide down into his seat looking ill. "Oh, come now, Arthur, don't—It's all right."

The thing was, Eames didn't understand that Arthur didn't feel bad about the sins he was committing so much as the fact that he felt bad about not caring. He was concerned that he didn't mind in the slightest what he was doing, foolhardy as it was… and he was only concerned because he was dragging Eames along for the ride.

"Eames… why do you like me?" Arthur asked, sipping from the can of beer on the table.

"What kind of a question is that?" Eames chuckled.

"A simple one. Why do you like me?"

Just then, there was a knock on Eames's door. Eames motioned to Arthur that he'd be right back and opened it, leaving the chain on.

It was Yusuf.

"Ariadne called and invited us to go to the karaoke bar tonight. She said you weren't answering your phone."

"Oh," Eames blinked, patting his pockets before digging out his cell. "Oh, I do have a missed call. Silly me. This damn thing never rings." He looked back at Arthur who was sitting there in his skinny jeans and t-shirt, beer can clasped between both hands, watching.

"Is someone in there with you?" Yusuf asked. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"N-no," Eames stammered. "Just ah—"

Arthur stood up and placed the beer can on the table and started glancing around. He seemed to settle on something, but Eames was trying to keep eye contact with Yusuf to avoid allowing his eyes to wander. "So, karaoke, eh? I don' t know if I'm willing to sit through another drunken rendition of 'I Will Survive', Yusuf."

"Ariadne's not so bad of a singer."

" _You_ sang that song, Yusuf."

Arthur had slipped into one of Eames's never worn blazers hanging in the back of the closet. He'd had it since middle school and had never thrown it out. His mother had always claimed he never threw anything out, but Eames figured that was just how artists were. Glorified hoarders.

Arthur looked damn good in it too. It aged him up just slightly.

"If you're not hiding anything, why won't you let me inside? Eames, I told you, I already know you were fooling around yesterday—"

"This isn't the same person," Eames interrupted.

Arthur had combed his hands through his hair, and somehow with it messier, he seemed more adult. After he'd lit a cigarette, he was almost convincing.

Eames shut the door and opened it with the chain off.

"Who are you?" Yusuf asked, eyeing Arthur suspiciously.

"An artist," Arthur replied, lifting the camera Eames had given him and taking Yusuf's picture. He'd gotten batteries for it on his way back to Eames's that afternoon after school, "and a model."

Yusuf raised an eyebrow, and Arthur took a drag on his cigarette. "You seem familiar."

"Mr. Eames hired me to model for him. I need a little extra money since I'm paying for art school, so I took him up on the offer," Arthur lied, never batting an eyelash, never letting an ounce of doubt creep into his words. He was even speaking more deeply.

"You look a bit… young to be modeling for money, for art school."

"I get that all the time," Arthur laughed. "It's fucking ridiculous."

Realization seemed to dawn on Yusuf. "Holy shit, you're… you're the muse boy! The one Eames's said he'd never see again!" He turned on Eames. "You lied to me!"

"I said I'd _probably_ never see him again. He wasn't really all that interested in my offer," Eames said, joining in on the lying, "but he lost his job, and now we're talking about prices." He clapped Yusuf on the shoulder and started leading him out before he saw the half-finished and completely finished paintings of Arthur already littering the place. "So, karaoke, eh? Sounds like fun! Eh, Arthur?"

"Sounds like a blast," Arthur agreed, finishing off his beer. "Who's driving?"

* * *

Arthur had never gone to sing karaoke before. He'd never done any kind of 'going out' before, really, so he couldn't help but feel excited. He tried to act nonchalant though, as though he'd gone out all the time.

"Oh, fuck, I forgot my I.D.," Arthur lied, looking into his wallet after climbing into the backseat of Yusuf's car.

"I can handle your drinks," Eames shrugged. "Besides, where we're going, they don't really give a shit."

"We know the owner," Yusuf assured Arthur.

Arthur spent the drive taking photographs of the passing city at night. "So, who's Ariadne?" he asked idly. "Is she your girlfriend, Eames?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Eames said. "She's just a girl I work with at the restaurant."

"Oh. Cool," Arthur replied, aiming the lens at Eames's profile and clicking. "You have a magnificent profile, Eames. Maybe you should be _my_ model sometime."

"Maybe," Eames laughed.

"Do I detect flirting?" Yusuf asked flatly. He didn't look amused.

"You don't understand art, Yusuf," Eames scoffed. "No wonder you flunked out of school."

" _You_ flunked out of school, Eames. I studied Chemistry, you twat. We're here."

The three of them got out of the car, and Arthur stayed at the back of the group so that Yusuf couldn't compare their heights. "So, is Ariadne single?" he asked.

"God, I hope so," Yusuf said dreamily, and Eames wheezed with laughter.

* * *

Ariadne was tiny and adorable, and Arthur and Eames were both grateful for that because she made Arthur seem much older. They seemed to click instantly, Arthur and Ariadne, laughing and joking over things only they seemed to understand. Yusuf wasn't too fond of their fast friendship, but Eames was sure there was nothing to worry about and assured Yusuf of such.

Yusuf still got drunk and sang 'All By Myself'.

Arthur was pretty buzzed as well after only a few beers, and he could tell by how he laughed a bit too loud at a terrible performance of No Doubt's 'Don't Speak'.

"Artie," Ariadne slurred, patting him on the back. No one else could get away with calling him that. Ariadne was just so _cute_ when she did it. "You should sing."

"Oh, no, I couldn't," Arthur shook his head, grinning ear to ear. "I couldn't, I _couldn't_. I've never been very good—I, I get stage fright."

"Do it!" Eames cheered, lifting his bottle in the air. Eames had been drinking two beers for every one of Arthur's.

"No!" Arthur cried, blushing, and the table broke into a chant of 'do it, do it, do it' so he ended up sighing and saying, "Fine, fine, I'll do it! You're animals."

Arthur clambered onto the stage, tossing his jacket to Eames, to a round of applause. Eames was grinning like he was waiting for Arthur to embarrass himself.

Arthur decided he'd just need to knock his socks off as revenge and picked his songs.

The crowd broke into laughter as the opening notes started up, but Arthur didn't care, licking his lips and grabbing the microphone.

Eames apparently didn't catch the reasoning behind Arthur's choice until he started to sing because that was when his smile faded a little, and he just stared.

" _You think I'm pretty without any make-up on, you think I'm funny when I tell the punch line wrong, I know you get me, so I'll let my walls come down, down…_ "

"Oh, you bastard," Eames whispered quietly enough that it may have just been in his head.

" _Before you met me, I was all right, but things were kind of heavy, you brought me to life, now every February you'll be my valentine_ ," he smiled at Eames. He couldn't _stop_ smiling at Eames. " _Valentine_ …"

"Oh, I love this song!" Ariadne squealed drunkenly and grabbed Yusuf by the arm. "C'mon, dance with me!"

"Oh, all right," Yusuf said as if it was some kind of chore, but his eyes were gleaming excitedly.

Eames didn't even notice them leave, too busy staring at Arthur, trying to keep his mouth from watering too much because _fuck_ , he knew what Arthur looked like naked, and now it was all he could see.

" _Let's go all the way tonight… No regrets, just love_."

"Oh, now that's just not fair," Eames mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

" _We can dance until we die, you and I will be young for-ev-er—_ "

Arthur spread his legs apart, and _shit_ he was practically fucking the microphone stand. " _You-_ " He pointed at Eames, " _make- me_ -" an overdramatic point at himself—Christ, he was _drunk_. " _—feel like I'm living a teen-age dream—_ "

Okay, Eames decided, Arthur was definitely doing the song to fuck with him.

Smart little bastard.

" _I- can't- sleep, let's run away and don't ever look back, don't ever look back…_ " Arthur looked into Eames's eyes, and suddenly... suddenly, this wasn't a game anymore, and he knew Eames felt it too, that sudden shift. " _My- heart- stops—when you look at me. Just- one- touch—now baby, I believe, this- is- real, let's take a chance and don't ever look back, don't ever look back._ "

Arthur sang the second verse and chorus in a haze.

Eames watched while Arthur ran his long fingered hands up his hips, licking his lips unconsciously, lost in Arthur's slightly pitchy, somewhat slurred, " _I will get your heart racing in my skin tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight. I'll let you put your hands on me in my skin tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight._ "

By the time the song ended, Arthur was pretty sure he'd molested the microphone stand and nearly fallen off the stage twice, but he was one-hundred-percent sure that he was half-hard.

Eames apparently shared a sentiment similar because as soon as Arthur stumbled off the stage, Eames grabbed him and dragged him away to the bathroom.

"Eames, what—" Arthur started, but Eames shut him up with a fierce kiss on the mouth.

"You cheeky little brat," Eames said, pulling away before diving back in.

"I thought you'd think it was funny," Arthur smirked.

"You didn't even think it was funny," Eames countered and shoved his hands down Arthur's pants. Arthur squealed, hips jutting towards Eames's touch. "Now see, this, _this_ is funny." Eames grinned like the devil himself.

" _Oh_ ," Arthur sighed, head lolling back on his neck. "That's just _hilarious_ …"

He clumsily slipped his hands into Eames's pants in response, causing him to grunt. Arthur plastered on a lazy, crooked grin, and the two of them jerked each other off until they were both a mess inside their underwear.

While Eames set to cleaning them both up (since Arthur was usually pretty much useless once he had been spent), in the back of his mind Arthur thought that this was another moment he should have been regretting or feeling guilty about, but he just couldn't get his brain working around the alcohol and lust and something that felt a little bit like a dream.

It felt a little bit like a dream and a lot like love.

_Oh, shit._


	5. Bite Hard (part 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Five

Arthur wore Eames's aviators to school the next day to block out the mocking sun from his hangover.

Arthur decided that the wine after they got back from the karaoke bar was a mistake. He also decided that leaving without a shower was a bad idea too. He had scurried out of the apartment to catch the bus that morning and only realized once he was sitting in the seat that he had his own seed dried to his stomach after their third round of sex that had caused both of them to drunkenly fall asleep.

He'd left Eames sleeping.

He already missed him.

"—Arthur."

He blinked, glancing up at the teacher. She had her arms crossed over her chest and a sneer on her lips, and Arthur couldn't help but think that maybe all the teachers at the school looked exactly the same.

"Is there any particular reason for this _fashion statement_ of yours, Arthur?"

"Huh?" Arthur asked dumbly and didn't realize until the teacher removed the sunglasses that he'd still been wearing them. "Oh… I guess I forgot to take them off." He tried not to wince when the light burned into his retinas, but he must have because the teacher's nostrils flared.

"Problem, Arthur?" she asked condescendingly.

"No, no, I'm fine," he said weakly, but the light had immediately magnified his headache from a dull roar to an unbearable one.

The teacher yanked him up out of his desk by the arm. "Tuck in your shirt and straighten your tie. You look slovenly and shouldn't have even been allowed inside this morning!"

Arthur groaned in the back of his throat, trying to shut out the pain by shutting his eyes. Her voice was too loud.

"Do it!"

"Do what?" Arthur whined, rubbing his temples.

"Arthur!"

She grabbed him by the ear to force him to look at her, and he vomited all down the front of her shirt.

The class was torn between laughing hysterically and gasping with horror. The teacher settled with screaming, and that only made Arthur's ears ring.

"Oops," he said.

* * *

Arthur was sent to the principal's office rather than the school nurse, and he discovered quickly that he hadn't been fooling anyone about simply being sick.

"Mrs. Porter said that you smelled of alcohol," the principal, Mr. Monroe said, standing from his seat. "You do." He was an older man, probably pushing fifty, with thinning, dark gray hair and watery blue eyes.

"My… mother has a problem with…" Arthur started, barely able to raise his voice above a whisper.

"Apparently so do you."

Arthur flinched. "I… I don't."

"How old are you, Arthur?" the principal asked, coming around to stand behind his chair. His hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment longer than Arthur was comfortable with.

"Sixteen."

"You're aware that's below the legal age for alcohol consumption, don't you?"

"You can't prove I was drinking," Arthur said, staring at the wall. He flipped Eames's sunglasses around in his hands. He actually didn't know if they could or not. "Look, Mr. Monroe, can we just get to the point here? Are you gonna put me in detention or whatever?"

"You didn't turn in any of your homework this morning either," Monroe replied, moving away from Arthur and tossing Arthur's backpack onto his desk. "A search through your things revealed a change of clothes smelling strongly of alcohol, and three cigarettes. We could suspend you just for having those cigarettes, Arthur."

Arthur momentarily forgot his pain and nausea for the moment. "What? _Suspension_? Isn't that a little harsh? They're not mine!"

"Whose are they, then?"

"They… They must be my mom's—they fell in my bag. They must have. I mean… I don't… I _never_ …"

"You've always been an adequate student here, Arthur," Monroe interrupted, leaning against a corner of his desk. "You've gotten good grades, you've been well behaved. I didn't believe it when I heard what had happened."

Arthur licked his lips and straightened his back a little in the chair. "Sir…"

"Arthur," he said, pacing around the desk then and then stopping so he was just in front of him, tilting his head upwards to stare at him. "Your eyes are bloodshot, and…" his fingers trailed down to the collar of his shirt, which he pulled away just slightly to reveal a bruising teeth mark on his collarbone. "What is this, I wonder?"

Arthur swallowed, fighting not to squirm in his chair.

"Please d-don't suspend me," Arthur said, voice cracking. "If my Dad finds out, he'll—" Well, Arthur's dad only needed an excuse to disown the one reason he married his mother in the first place, and there was an unfounded fear that one thing would lead to another, and another, and another, until Eames was discovered to be the one who left that little love bite. He couldn't let that happen to Eames.

He could never let that happen to Eames because he'd fallen in love with him.

Hell, he may have been in love with him at first sight, if things like that truly existed.

"Please—"

The principal shushed him by placing a finger on his lips. "I won't suspend you. You will have to make it up to me though."

Arthur felt his heart thud against his ribcage, and he was sure his nausea wasn't just from the hangover.

"You'll bang erasers, wipe down all the desks, clean every blackboard after school, every day, for the next two months. You will come to school with your uniform worn properly, and you will not wear sunglasses or anything against dress code. If you are caught with cigarettes or alcohol again, you _will_ be suspended. Do you understand?" His finger trailed up and brushed a loose strand of hair out of Arthur's eye.

"Y—yes."

"Good boy. Run along."

Arthur couldn't get out of the office fast enough. As soon as he was free, he went into the bathroom and threw up.

He wasn't sure why he felt so sick and blamed it on the hangover, even though a nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him that it wasn't the case.

* * *

"I think I would have just stuck with the suspension," Cobb said, spinning in Arthur's computer chair.

Arthur didn't lift his head from his pillow. "I can't get suspended. You know how my dad gets."

"Not really. When was the last time you even saw him?"

"I think he'd make a special case to come home and kick my ass if I got suspended from the school he so called 'worked his ass off to get me into' or whatever. 'My grades weren't good enough to get me in there on merit alone, but he still pulled all the strings' and all that shit."

"He doesn't actually beat you, does he?" Cobb asked, lighting a cigarette.

Arthur lifted his head to look at Cobb, thought about it, and said, "No. He doesn't."

He had a belt-buckle shaped scar on his ass to prove the contrary, but the only one who had seen that was…

Arthur remembered the painting and how Eames had left the scar out, and for some reason it made him want to cry.

"Still, you've basically been turned into a janitor," Cobb continued after taking a few puffs. "That's gotta suck, right?"

"I'll manage."

"And all that over a few cigarettes?"

"And barfing on Mrs. Porter."

"I don't think that was fair. I mean, you said you were sick, right?"

"I wasn't fooling anyone, Cobb," Arthur grumbled, tossing an arm over his eyes. "I know I'm not fooling you, so you can stop pretending for my sake. Go ahead and chew me out, all right? You might as well get it out of your system before Mal finds out and you double-team me."

"Rumor has it you were hungover."

"Yeah, well… I didn't realize how much I was drinking."

"Where were you drinking?"

"Karaoke bar."

Cobb snorted. "No, really."

Arthur looked at him. "I'm serious. I sang a Katy Perry song. That alone should tell you I was drunk."

Cobb stopped spinning in the chair and slouched back into it. "You're cool new guy friend convince you to drink?"

"No," Arthur said. "He actually told me I shouldn't drink so much, but I was having fun."

He couldn't remember if Eames had actually said that.

"Are these," Cobb asked, grabbing the sunglasses off of Arthur's desk, "from that cool guy friend too?"

"I just borrowed them. You borrowed shit from me all the time back before you got taller than me."

"I wasn't accusing you of anything. It was just a question," Cobb said, putting the sunglasses on for a second and admiring his reflection in Arthur's computer screen before putting the lenses back on the desk. "Who is this guy, anyway? How'd you meet him?"

"I ran into him on the way outside of the library," Arthur lied, sitting up and folding his legs Indian-style. "I apologized. We talked. He thought I was cool, so we became friends."

"That doesn't sound like you. It also doesn't explain how this guy showed up in your life right after your blow up in the classroom and subsequent disappearance… and you've been acting weird ever since, man. Come on, you know you can tell me. I won't tell anyone, I swear."

"Liar," Arthur said flatly, snagging Cobb's cigarette and taking a drag off of it. "You tell Mal everything."

"She doesn't know I still smoke. She doesn't know I jerk off. Hell, Arthur, she doesn't know that I made it to third base with my last girlfriend before I met her. Believe it or not, I'm not quite as susceptible to her guilty eyes as you might think. I've been with her long enough to work up at least a bit of an immunity. Besides, there are some things that just stay between guys."

Arthur got up and started pacing the room, snagging his camera off of the dresser in the process and holding it protectively to his chest. "Well, it's not… I mean, what if I tell you and you go back on it? I _can't_ let this get out, Cobb."

"Can't let what get out, Arthur? I swear on my mom's _life_ that I won't tell anyone."

Arthur turned, running a hand over his hair and said, "I… I had sex with him, okay?"

It took ten seconds before Cobb even processed the sentence. It took ten more seconds before he managed to say anything, and when he did he said, "Whoa, what?"

"Secret's out and so am I, apparently," Arthur said, cradling the camera because he didn't actually have Eames there to do so. "We've been having sex, this friend of mine and I."

Cobb stared, eyebrows knitted together in the middle of his forehead. "So… you're gay."

"…Yeah, I think so," Arthur sighed. "I really like it, and I really like him, and that's why I'm not going to tell you who he is."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"Because he's twenty-two."

"Okay… _what_? What the fuck, Arthur?" Cobb jumped to his feet then, holding his arms out as if the closer his hands were to the walls, the closer he'd come to a conclusion.

"You're taking this better than I expected," Arthur said sardonically.

"Fuck, Arthur, do you— _fuck_. _Fuck_ , you're fucking a twenty-two year old? Isn't that like… pedophilia or something?"

"Pedophiles like prepubescent _children_ , Cobb. Don't talk about him like that, okay? Jesus, he's not some crazy pervert. He's only six years older than me. That's not that much—"

"Are you _listening_ to yourself?" Cobb shouted, pointing his entire hand at Arthur, but then he paused, seeming to calm down, and ran his hand through his hair, sending it falling into his eyes. "Okay… I don't know the guy. I don't know what this is all about… I'm your friend, not your dad, so I shouldn't be… but… _fuck_ …"

"We're careful," Arthur assured him weakly. "He always wears protection—"

"Don't… Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear about that," Cobb interrupted, sitting back down and placing his face into his hands. "I swore I wouldn't tell, and I won't, but… Are you sure you should really be doing this? How do you know you're not just some creepy, underage fetish for him?"

"I lied to him, told him I was eighteen before, and I… I know that it's not just… because it isn't just that. He… He's really nice to me, Cobb." He couldn't stop the soft smile from forming on his lips, and he looked down at the camera where, in the viewfinder, was the picture of Eames's profile in Yusuf's car.

"Holy shit, are you _in love_ with this guy?"

"I… I don't know. Maybe a little…" Arthur said, wilting away from Cobb's stunned gaze.

"Do you even know what love is?"

Arthur sighed through his nose. "I don't know."

He stood and put his hands on Arthur's shoulders, and his gaze was so intense that Arthur couldn't look away. It frightened him just a little, the look on Cobb's face. "Just… don't go rushing into anything like this, okay? I can't say for sure, but you could be heading down a bad road here… a _really_ bad road. I won't tell anyone unless you keep getting into trouble because if it's to help you, you know I'll step in to protect you, Arthur. We've been friends since grade school, and I just don't want to see you hurt."

That night, after Cobb left, Arthur passed his mother's room to find her asleep, and a man pulling his jeans on. He stared at Arthur who just walked away, shoving his earbuds in his ears to drown out the silence.

…and then he had a thought.

What makes me any different than her?

He spent the rest of his evening taking pictures of things in his yard until it was too dark to see, and he fell asleep looking at his only photograph of Eames, wondering what his first name was, wondering how many people Eames had slept with before him, wondering if Arthur was anything more than a free fuck to him.

* * *

Eames was exhausted after another double shift at the restaurant, and an ungrateful table had kept him there past closing time without so much as a fifteen percent tip. As soon as he reached the lobby of his apartment complex, he was ready to collapse.

Yusuf was there.

"Oh, hey, Yusuf," Eames said, waving halfheartedly as he started for the stairs. "What are you doing down here so late? Got a hooker coming or something?"

"I was waiting for you," Yusuf said unsurely. "I need to talk to you because it's bothering the hell out of me, and I can't sleep."

"If this is a confession of love, I can assure you it can wait until tomorrow," Eames replied, starting up the stairs with Yusuf on his heels.

"Eames, I don't know how stupid you think I am, but you must think awfully lowly of me if you think you've fooled anyone about that Arthur boy."

Eames froze and looked back at Yusuf, trying to keep his expression neutral. "What about—"

"Eames, he's clearly still a kid. His bloody voice still cracks. You really thought you could put him in a blazer and shove a cigarette in his mouth and I'd be convinced otherwise?"

"He told me he was eighteen," Eames said, returning to his climb so he didn't have to look Yusuf in the eye while he lied.

"I also know _you're_ not that stupid. Even when you were shooting up three times a day, you were still capable of telling the difference between what was jailbait and what wasn't."

"I don't recall ever having to make that decision," Eames said. "Yusuf, you're barking—"

"I know you're fucking him, Eames. I saw the way he looked at you. I saw the way you looked at him. I'll repeat, _I'm not that_ _ **stupid**_."

Eames groaned and took the next flight of stairs two at a time. "It's not really fair that you're cornering me after such a rough night at work, you know. I wouldn't do it to you."

Eames finally reached his floor, but when he went to put his key in the lock, Yusuf snagged Eames by the shoulder and whirled him around, forcing him to look at him. "This isn't a bloody game, Eames," he said darkly. "I could call the police on you tonight."

Eames swallowed the knot in his throat. "Yusuf…"

"He's just a kid, Eames. How old is he?"

"…"

" _Eames_."

"…" he sighed. "He's sixteen, all right? I didn't know that when I met him. I was… kind of… piss drunk. I met him in the club, so I assumed he was old enough, all right?... and when it was over, and I realized my mistake, I decided to just pretend it never happened, but…"

"You couldn't stay away," Yusuf replied quietly.

"No! That's not it at all, Yusuf. He came back here by himself. _He_ came back to _me_ , Yusuf. I didn't force him… Fuck, you don't understand. You didn't… You didn't _hear_ him, Yusuf, the way that he fucking cried. He acts like I'm the only person in the entire world who even knows he exists. I couldn't just turn him away. He would have bloody killed himself."

Yusuf's expression was a mix of horror and confusion and sympathy, if it was possible. "This is a big deal, Eames. You can't just pretend it isn't because you don't want to hurt his feelings."

"He's a good kid, Yusuf. He's smart and he's beautiful, and I just don't want him to think I'm _using_ him."

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Are you using him? What possible reason would you be screwing around with a cute sixteen-year-old piece of ass for?"

"I…" Eames started but stopped himself before he said something too personal. "I draw. I paint again. I… I feel alive again when he's around, Yusuf. I haven't done any good art since Roxanne died, but when he's around… I don't feel so… alone."

It came out a bit personal anyway.

"Y-you said so yourself that my art had improved," Eames continued.

"But _Eames_ —"

" _Please_ , Yusuf, just—just give me some time. I need to figure some things out. You don't want to send me to prison, do you?"

"No, I don't. Just…" Yusuf sighed, rubbing his temple. "Don't keep fucking around. This isn't something you can keep secret forever, you know."

Eames didn't want to think about that, so instead he went to bed and went to sleep.

He dreamed of Arthur's laugh.


	6. Bite Hard (part 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Six

Arthur spent the weekend out by himself. On Saturday, he went to the library and started reading books on photography. The longer he read, the more fascinated he became. He was absorbed in the technical aspect at first, how the camera Eames had given him actually had several settings to it, how different lights changed the moods of things, the rule of three… but soon enough he was immersed in other kinds of photography books, amazed over what people could achieve with a camera. He found an image by Kevin Carter of a skeletal, starved Sudan boy being haunted by a vulture waiting for him to die that actually caused him to shed tears.

Sunday, he set out to taking photos himself. Most of them he thought were really stupid, but he was particularly proud of a portrait of a toddler with the brightest eyes he'd ever seen, and the picture he'd taken of an old man hovered over a coffee cup in front of a café. He took pictures of his shadow and of his reflections in store windows and pictures of the sky and of the passing cars. He filled his memory card with the chaos around him so that he didn't have to think about the chaos inside of him.

Monday he was introduced to his punishment.

By Tuesday, he was beginning to share Cobb's sentiment for suspension. He was exhausted and sore and covered in chalk dust, and he didn't get home until nearly nine. After a long shower, he sat down and did his homework, even though he didn't want to. He figured he needed to get back in good graces with the school if he didn't want to be beating erasers and wiping down desks and blackboards for eternity.

He didn't finish his homework until three Wednesday morning, just as he had finished Monday's homework the day before. He slept for three and a half hours and went to school, skipping breakfast because he didn't have time.

The day went by in a sleepy haze, Arthur trying to nurse a migraine with only a bottle of water. He was convinced that he should have spent the weekend sleeping rather than dicking around in the city, but he had a pack of developed pictures in his bag to show Eames.

 _Eames_.

Arthur's energy was only hanging on by a thread because he knew he'd see Eames that night. Despite how complicated things had undoubtedly gotten over the relationship, Eames was the only thing that brought him even a flicker of joy. Arthur felt so on edge all the time, but Eames could put him at peace with something as simple as a look. He was looking forward to it, forgetting the heavy thoughts weighing on his mind for a moment, only bringing them up when he felt better because he knew Eames would listen.

"—thur."

"Six?" he said suddenly, realizing he wasn't listening.

The teacher blinked. "That's correct," he said, and wrote it on the board.

Arthur thought that maybe things were looking up.

* * *

Arthur hurried through his punishment and managed to get out by eight, but he could barely lift himself by that point and ended up missing his stop on the bus because he dozed off for a moment. He walked two blocks to Eames's apartment, trudged up the stairs, and knocked.

"Come in!" Eames's voice shouted, muffled through the wood.

Eames had set up a new canvas and had painted it golden yellow before smattering on a brilliant red in a form similar to a human profile. He was standing about a foot away from it, glaring at it. "You're a bit late, aren't you? I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

"Sorry. I got in trouble at school. Had to stay late," Arthur sighed, dropping all of his stuff onto the floor. "Did you start on this waiting for me?"

"Would you believe I've been looking at this damned thing all day? Fuck, it's missing… something. A lot of somethings. I'm about ready to chuck it out the window."

"Can I try to help?" Arthur asked.

Eames stepped away from the canvas, spreading his arms out in a _be my guest_ kind of manner. Arthur cocked his head to the side, chewing on his bottom lip, thinking. He looked at the brushes but didn't know which one made what mark, so he instead grabbed a tube of light blue paint and splattered it onto his hand.

He trailed his blue hand down the visible part of the chest near the bottom of the painting, leaving long finger marks as though the hand was pulling the person down. On the opposite shoulder, Arthur smeared his hand until the shape he made looked somewhat like a human head and neck. He stepped back to look at it, and that's when he felt Eames's body pressed against his. He had a brush in his hand again.

Eames reached out and painted a yellow eye on the red man, a curve for his ear, and Arthur dipped a finger in red paint and drew strands of hair on the back of the blue man's head and knuckles on his hand. Eames abandoned the brush and dipped his own hand in the red paint, grazing his fingers across the blue man's hair, leaving finger marks there.

They added and took away from the painting for the next hour and a half.

"What should we call this, I wonder?" Eames asked, wrapping his arms around Arthur's neck, balancing his chin on the top of his head.

Arthur paused and then said, "Playing with Fire."

"I like it," Eames agreed. "What would I do without you?"

"Not art," Arthur teased, and Eames responded by pressing his palm onto Arthur's cheek, leaving a bright red paint handprint.

"Hold on now," he said, turning Arthur to really look at him. "You're a bit warm. Stay there."

Arthur did as he was told. Eames returned from behind the bathroom curtain a few moments later with a thermometer.

"I'm okay—" Arthur started, but Eames shoved it into his mouth before he could finish.

"We'll see," he said, wiping off his hands with a wet towel. Arthur did the same. When the thermometer beeped, Eames took it out and squinted at the numbers. "One hundred. You're running a fever, darling."

"That's not a bad fever," Arthur said, but even just knowing it made him feel more exhausted. Eames scrubbed the red handprint off of Arthur's face. "I just haven't gotten a lot of… of sleep…" he yawned. "I'm okay. We can still—"

Eames curled his fingers around the back of Arthur's neck and pulled him to his chest, slowly. "Oh, shush."

He pulled Arthur's tie free, unbuttoned his shirt, removed his trousers, until he was shivering in his undershirt and boxer shorts, and then tucked him into bed with himself, curling his arms around his waist to keep him warm.

Arthur buried his face against Eames's shirt, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

He figured they could always fuck tomorrow.

* * *

When Arthur woke up, early morning sunlight was pouring in through the window, and Eames was breathing against his hair. Neither of them had moved for the entire night.

"Eames," Arthur said scratchily, shoving gently against his chest, "Eames… What time is it?"

Eames stirred with a yawn, raising his head from the sheets. "It's six twelve."

"Oh," Arthur said hazily, fighting himself to keep from falling back to sleep. "I need to… get up…"

He rolled out of the warm comfortable covers and Eames's inviting arms into the too-cold air of the apartment. "I'm sorry about last night—"

"You're doing it again," Eames chastised, but he was smiling.

Arthur bit back on another apology and grinned sheepishly. Something softened in Eames's gaze, and it stirred something in Arthur's chest that forced him to look at the floor.

Arthur cleared his throat and started for the shower, but not before Eames checked his temperature. It was still about ninety-nine, but Arthur refused to stay home, no matter how much he wanted to.

They bathed together, removing little flecks of paint off of each other with soapy touches ,and he kissed Eames's shoulder when Eames toweled Arthur's hair.

"I missed you," Eames said.

Arthur very nearly said something he feared he'd regret… something like _I always miss you_.

"I'll see you tonight," Arthur promised, buttoning his shirt. "We can fuck tonight."

* * *

Arthur remembered the pictures only after he'd gotten to school and went digging through his things. He also found that Eames had stashed a few cigarettes for him in his pencil box, but he knew better than to let anyone notice those.

He barely passed an exam he didn't study for and managed to stay awake during his Religion class. He spotted Cobb in the hallway in between classes, but neither of them spoke to one another. Cobb had his arm around Mal, and he seemed to be sticking to his silence on behalf of Arthur's secret. They shared a knowing glance but nothing more.

Arthur smoked a cigarette in the bathroom before going to his next class, and saved the other two for the time he would be cleaning. He'd been threatened with suspension if he was caught with cigarettes again, but he was positive after a couple of days of work that he was the only one in the whole goddamned building.

He thought about that and then thought about calling Eames and asking him to join him, and then he realized that he didn't have a phone number to contact Eames with.

The realization left a bad taste in his mouth.

That evening, while wiping down desks, he turned up his music on his mp3 player to keep himself awake.

When he made it back to Eames's place, he was nearly exhausted to the point of dropping again… but he was determined to stay up and get fucked. Otherwise, he was just some annoying little kid taking up space in his apartment… at least, that's what he thought Eames thought, but there wasn't a way to be sure. He was too afraid to ask, too afraid to be right.

As soon as Arthur knocked, Eames swung the door open and pulled him inside in what could only be described as a bear hug. "Hello, my darling," he said, planting a kiss to Arthur's temple.

"You're in a good mood," Arthur mused once Eames released him.

"I sold not one, not two, but _three_ paintings today," he said.

Arthur blinked. "Oh…" It registered. "That's _awesome_!"

Eames dragged Arthur to the kitchen table where he'd set up dinner. It was microwaved Italian, and Arthur realized he hadn't eaten since the day before and was ravenously hungry. He was halfway through his plate before he managed to ask, "Which ones did you sell? How much?"

Eames sipped at his wine before saying, "That one we did last night went for four hundred."

Arthur nearly choked. "Really? But—"

"That one of your back went for five."

"Five _hundred_?"

Eames nodded.

"I also sold a landscape for one-fifty, as well."

"Oh, well, what about the one of me by the window? It didn't sell?"

"Oh, darling, that one's not for sale. That one's just for me."

Arthur blushed a little and grinned, cheeks dimpling unashamedly. "…You could always paint another one, if you change your mind."

"Perhaps," Eames decided, twirling his fork, "but tonight, we celebrate. I actually thought about taking the two of us out, but—"

"It's better if we're not seen together," Arthur replied automatically. He cleared his throat, looking down at his food, and mumbled, "I don't care about fancy restaurants."

Eames sighed through his nose and stood, chair scraping against the linoleum. When Arthur looked up, Eames had extended his hand before him. "Have you ever been to a dance at your school?" he asked.

Arthur shook his head. "N—no… I mean, we had them, but I was never invited."

Eames pulled Arthur out of his chair and into his arms. "Are you serious? You've never been felt up to the tune of the nineties' greatest love ballads? What a shame."

"You're going to be taking another one of my firsts then?" Arthur asked, smirking.

"Of course! ...but to something a little better when it comes to music."

Eames turned on his stereo, and even though one of the speakers buzzed because it had been blown, they giggled and snorted through a slow dance or two before spinning and toppling over furniture and bouncing off the walls to few up-tempo songs. Soon, they both found themselves on the living room floor, ears pressed together, and Arthur was singing every word of "Midnight Radio" like his life depended on it.

When the song came to an end, Arthur sighed, shutting his eyes.

When he opened them, Eames was hovering over him. He only saw him long enough for Eames to close the distance between them, kissing him slowly. Arthur breathed into Eames, hand coming up to the short hairs at the back of his neck, pushing him down to deepen the kiss.

Eames only pulled away when both of them were out of air. Arthur licked Eames's bottom lip as their lips separated, and he nearly panicked when he almost said _I love you_.

"You all right there?" Eames asked, stroking Arthur's cheekbones with his thumbs.

"I…" he said and caught himself again. He just wanted to say it so _badly_. "Bed… Let's… the floor is… uncomfortable."

Eames smiled a little unsurely, like he was waiting for something else, but if he was, he didn't say so. He took Arthur's hands and pulled him to his feet, and the two of them tumbled into bed.

They didn't even start to undress for the next few minutes, just kissing and kissing, and Arthur felt like he was floating up and off of the mattress, melting into nothing and everything all at once. Eames undid the buttons on his shirt slowly, kissing along his collarbone and down his chest. Arthur arched into him, letting his fingertips on his ribcage set him alight.

Those hands left his ribs to tug down his pants, and Eames licked a stripe up the underside of Arthur's prick, causing him to shudder and moan. When he wrapped his lips around the head, Arthur was in near-ecstasy.

Then, he found himself saying, "No—n-no, this… Ah… _Eames_... Fuck… Fuck me, I know you want to."

Eames lifted his head, blinking hazily through clouds of lust. "What do _you_ want me to do?"

Arthur couldn't believe he was asking him questions at a time like this. "I… _oh_ … please, just… whatever you… I…" and then his voice cracked. "I just want to make you happy…" he whimpered.

"Then," Eames said, touching Arthur's face, swiping away stray tears, "you'll let me do this."

Arthur choked on sobs as Eames went down on him again, and he was humiliated for admitting such a thing out loud and completely touched that Eames _wanted_ to and beside himself over what that could possibly mean. He could barely think coherently with Eames's mouth on him, and he couldn't stop the tears, and when he came, it was with a trembling little wail.

He fell apart there, wiping at tears only for them to be replaced immediately, and at that point, he didn't even know _why_ he was such a mess.

"You okay?" Eames asked, pressing his knuckles against Arthur's wet cheek, sliding tears away. "What's wrong? Did I hurt you?"

Arthur shook his head. _I love you._

"Fuck me," he begged.

_I love you._

Eames did, slowly preparing him at first, and Arthur was hard again by the time Eames pushed himself inside.

Arthur jerked himself off while Eames rocked into him, and by the time his sobs started gaining volume, Eames leaned in and kissed them away on the tips of his lips. Arthur swallowed them, licking into Eames's mouth, tasting remnants of himself mixed in with Eames's own taste, and the fingers of his free hand gripped into his hair, and his toes curled, and he climaxed to the sound of roaring in his ears.

It seemed to take an eternity for him to come down, and when he did, he was so exhausted that his limbs felt like lead. He felt like he had crashed into the bed from the stratosphere and only Eames, who was cradling him in his arms, was holding him together.

"You all right?" Eames asked sleepily against Arthur's forehead.

"I'm okay…" he said, voice rough. He must have screamed, he thought. "I'm… I'm okay…"

"Go to sleep, love."

 _I love you_.

* * *

Once Arthur fell asleep, Eames got out of the bed. When he realized Arthur was still covered in his own seed, he set to cleaning him off. He paused, looking down at the boy's serene, sleeping face, his lips swollen from kissing, his cheeks still stained with tears.

He wondered if something had gone on at home or at school to cause him to break down that way, but it slowly filtered into his brain what he had said.

 _"I just want to make you happy_. _"_

He couldn't help but be utterly confused by such a statement. He didn't know why Arthur was so desperate to please him, felt so undeserving of anything in return…

Eames hummed through a sigh, moving a piece of hair out of Arthur's eyes, and the boy's face leaned against Eames's touch. "What on earth have I done to you?" he asked quietly, pulling the covers over him and kissing his eyelids.

He stopped mid-movement and sat back on his haunches. "Actually… what have you done to me?"

Realizing the implications of such a question, Eames settled in and drew pictures of Arthur's hands and of his eyelashes and of his lips. It only made his thoughts heavier, so he instead washed the dishes and straightened up the apartment in an attempt to focus on something else, and that was when he nudged Arthur's bag with his foot, sending pictures scattering.

He was still looking through them when Arthur stirred.

"E—Eames?" he croaked.

"Go back to sleep, love," Eames cooed from where he was on the couch.

"Can't sleep… Come back to bed. I'm cold."

Eames set the pictures on the table and crawled back under the covers with Arthur, pressing his palm against the boy's forehead. "I think you might have another fever," he said.

"I'll be okay," Arthur replied, eyelids drooping.

"Why did you say that earlier?" Eames asked, unable to help himself. "The thing about making me happy? Why do you want to make me so happy?"

"I don't know…" he mumbled, leaning up to plant a kiss on Eames's lips but missing and kissing his jaw instead.

In the lie, in the kiss, Eames realized it.

 _I love you_.

* * *

"Well, this is new," Yusuf said when he opened his door to Eames. "Normally it's me banging on your door."

Eames exhaled, leaning against the doorjamb, and Yusuf seemed to feel a little sympathy for the look on his friend's face.

"Have you realized that you're fucking insane?" Yusuf asked.

"Arthur's in love with me," Eames said, "or at least he thinks he is."

"Of course he does," Yusuf groaned, stepping aside to let Eames in. "You said that he thinks that you're the only one in the world who gives a shit about him. Of course he'd think that."

"But—"

"You took his virginity, right?"

"Well—I didn't know at the time—"

"When you lost your virginity, did you think you were in love with that person?" Yusuf asked, setting out two tea cups on his kitchen counter.

Eames leaned his back against the door. "I didn't _think_ I was, Yusuf, I _knew_ I was. It was Roxanne, Yusuf. I was batty over her."

"Sorry," Yusuf said sarcastically as he poured boiled water into the cups, "explain it to me again? You were absolutely batty over the girl who got you hooked on heroin and caused you to eventually flunk out of school and—"

" _Don't_ ," Eames said harshly, causing Yusuf to clamp his mouth shut, "Don't talk about her like that. You don't know what went on between us. Don't act like you do."

"No use defending a dead woman, Eames," Yusuf replied, dropping tea bags into the glasses. "I know she was your muse and all, but it's time to let it go. Let's stay on topic here, all right? We were talking about Arthur, right?"

"I… yes," Eames sighed, sitting down at the counter and sipping at the tea. "I don't know what to do about this, Yusuf. I never intended for him to fall in love with me. I didn't really expect for things to go _this_ far. I mean, Jesus, it was supposed to just be a one night stand."

"You should have refused him when he came back," Yusuf said.

"I told you, Yusuf, I… I just _couldn't_. The boy's life completely sucks, and I don't want to cause him any more pain. It wouldn't be right for me to just… just _crush_ him like that. Yusuf, you didn't see the way that he cried. He fucking _sobbed_. I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I certainly can't do it now."

"Is that why you're here? Looking for advice?"

"I don't know," Eames sighed, stroking the slide of his cup. "I don't see Arthur again until Wednesday, so I suppose I have some time to think about it, but… this is getting complicated. I just thought he was beautiful. I just saw him as my muse. He… sees me as something much better than I am."

"Why did you use the word _saw_?"

Eames cocked an eyebrow. "What the fuck do you mean?"

"You said you just _saw_ him as your muse. Past tense. Is that not how it is anymore?"

Eames looked down into his tea. "Of course it's the same," he said quietly. "You know what I meant to say. Stop trying to use Freudian bullshit on me…"

"Well, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Nothing, I guess… he'll figure out what kind of guy I am eventually, realize what a fool he's been, stop showing up…" He sipped at the tea awkwardly.

"Eames."

"What the fuck would you do, Yusuf?" Eames asked, slamming his tea down so hard that it sloshed over the side. "Break his fragile little heart? Send him careening into a fit of depression because he's completely alone and ends up slitting his wrists in the bathtub?"

Yusuf grabbed paper towels and handed them to Eames, gaze trailing over the scars on the inside of Eames's wrists. "He's not you, Eames."

Eames pressed his hand over his eyes, feeling wetness welling up in the corners. "I wasn't… trying to kill myself that night. I just needed to get out some bad blood… He's not me. He's not as strong as I was… He doesn't have anyone to fall back on, not anyone who'd really understand."

"He's not your responsibility—"

"Damned if he isn't!" Eames shouted, standing so harshly that his stool tipped. "If I don't take care of him, who's going to?"

Yusuf stared into Eames's eyes, silent, but Eames heard every word he wasn't saying.

"Oh, piss off!" he shouted, turning away and storming out. "Thanks for the tea."


	7. Bite Hard (part 7)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Seven

"I love him."

Cobb shut his locker door and gave Arthur a long onceover. "You're out of your mind."

"I don't care. It doesn't change how I feel."

Cobb ran a hand through his hair and leaned back against the locker. "So, why tell me?"

Arthur suddenly seemed to find his shoes very interesting. "I… needed to tell _someone_."

"So, tell _him_."

"I can't."

Cobb had been completely against the relationship, but for all his disapproval of it, he seemed genuinely sympathetic to Arthur's plight. He placed a hand on Arthur's shoulder and squeezed it. "So, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know… maybe sit back and hope it passes."

"You know that won't happen. The only way to get over it is to stop seeing him all together, and even then you might not… if this is real, legitimate love, that is."

"I can't stop seeing him, Cobb…" Arthur nearly whispered, not looking up from the floor. "I can't… go back to what I was doing before. Maybe… Maybe what I'm doing now is really bad for me, but the life I was living before was a lot worse. I can't live like that, Dom. I can't do it anymore. I'm… I'm not a fucking robot. I can't just… march through with this same routine. I like being able to see things… being able to _feel_ things."

Cobb's hand slipped around his back, pulling him into a shoulder hug. "Do what you think is best, I guess… I don't really know what to say to help you."

"I'm not asking for your help," Arthur said. "I just… Fuck… I fell in love with Eames because I could tell him anything, but—"

"So his name's Eames? That's kind of a weird name."

Arthur shoved himself away from Cobb, gaping like a fish, horrified. "I—I uh… _Fuck_!"

"Relax," Cobb said, holding his hands up in a placating fashion. "I won't say anything. It's fine. Don't panic. You might get a nosebleed."

"I'm not prone to nosebleeds."

"You are when you don't eat," Cobb replied. "What, with that iron deficiency and all."

Arthur snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and following after Cobb down the hall to the bathroom. "So… I mean, you didn't exactly _support_ my decision before. Why not tell anyone?"

"Would you rather I ratted you out?" Cobb asked, pushing open the door and allowing Arthur to go in first. "I imagine it would relieve a little stress to get that out in the open."

"If you think my father discovering his son's a faggot and the man I'm in love with being sent to prison equals less stress, then yes," Arthur said flatly, hopping up on his usual sink and digging out a cigarette. "I just don't understand why you're keeping it secret for me when you're so adamantly against it."

Cobb lit the cigarette for him before lighting one of his own. "Well," he said, removing it from his mouth, "you're my friend, and even though you haven't always been one to make great decisions, I trust your judgment. Also, it's not as if you can help who you fall in love with. When it came to me and Mal, it just kind of… _happened_. It was this real sudden thing."

"Cobb, the moment I introduced her to you, you whispered 'dibs' in my ear."

"Yeah, yeah," Cobb laughed, "but that was attraction, not love. I knew I was in love with her the moment she smiled and all I could see was her. It sounds really cheesy, but I just _knew_ it. All the other girls I dated, all the other girls I'd wanted to date… I forgot them. There is no future prospect because my future is Mal."

"I don't think it sounds cheesy," Arthur said softly.

"So, are you sure you're in love with this Eames guy? I mean, how do you feel about him?"

"I…" he paused, pursing his lips. "I've never felt this way about anyone before. It's like… It's like there's color in the world again. I didn't even notice it was missing until then. He makes me want to… believe in myself. He makes me want to see things, go places, do stuff… and… when he looks at me sometimes, I just wanna cry. I don't even know why that is. I have trouble sleeping at night when I don't have him next to me or don't get to hear his voice during the day, and I always dream about him. Always."

Cobb didn't respond to that, and Arthur wondered if maybe he just sounded stupid and in lust… but he didn't feel the lust like he had that first night. He was content with just being with Eames. Sex didn't have to be involved. He liked watching him paint or eating dinner with him or dancing like idiots around his apartment. He did love the sex, but the touching and kissing was what made it so grand. Spending time with Eames was the only thing he had to look forward to during the week, and he just didn't think that that was lust.

He couldn't tell Cobb that though. He'd already gotten too personal for his own tastes.

"I love him," Arthur repeated, more sure this time.

And Cobb said, "You know, I really think you do."

* * *

On Monday evening, when Arthur got home, Arthur's father was there.

Arthur's father had always been a large man with dark, dark eyes and had never been seen out of a business suit to Arthur's knowledge. Arthur had gotten his lean, thin form from his mother's side of the family, and if he and his father's eyes hadn't been the same, their noses curved the same way, he would have seriously questioned if the man even _was_ his real father.

Sometimes, he still had his doubts. He was pretty sure his father did too.

"Arthur," he greeted from the kitchen table, looking through paperwork, speaking as if he'd just seen him the day before.

"Hello," Arthur said weakly, grabbing an apple out of a bowl on the counter and immediately turning on his heel, "I'm going to go do my homework."

"Good boy."

Arthur passed his mother's room on the way to his own and found her sitting on the edge of the bed with a nearly drained glass of wine, humming to herself. Arthur figured she was just waiting for her husband to leave, a lot like he was.

He locked himself in his room and, flopping down on the bed, dug his phone out of his pocket, sifting through numbers to see if he had anyone in his contact list who would know the homework assignment of the class he slept through.

That was when he noticed a number labeled 'E'.

He texted, swallowing down a little bit of hope, " _Who is this?_ "

Just when he assumed he wouldn't get a response, his phone pinged.

" _Who do u think it is, darling?_ "

Arthur broke out into a smile and called the number, giddy. As soon as Eames picked up, Arthur asked, "When the hell did you put your number in my phone?"

"The other night, when you were asleep. I was cleaning and knocked over your stuff, so of course I had to snoop a little bit. Sorry if that offends you."

Arthur snorted. "There's not much information in my contact list. I've only got like, six or seven numbers in it."

"I saw your photographs too."

Arthur wondered if Eames could tell he was blushing even over the phone.

"I'm no expert, but some of them are actually quite good, you know. You should try to submit them to some local magazines. They have some photography ones that'll send you money if they like them."

"I don't think they're good enough to send in to anything like that."

"I do," Eames replied. "You see things with a particular eye, Arthur. You see things not everyone cares to see."

"Sometimes I wonder if you're being serious or if you're just being nice to me."

"Why on earth would I lie to you?"

"Maybe the sex is good?" Arthur smirked.

"If it was just about the sex, I assure you I could find someone else."

Arthur paused, rolling onto his stomach. "Well, if it's not just about the sex, what is it about? The art?"

"Well, _no_ , not just the art… Um…"

"Well, what then?" Arthur laughed, and he managed to hold back the twinge of hysteria creeping through his body.

"I… It's complicated to—Listen, I'm at work right now. I'm on a smoke break, but I have to get back to it, you know? Ah… I'll see you Wednesday."

"No, Eames—Please, just—"

"I've got to go, I'm in a rush—" Eames said over the sound of what must have been his manager shouting at him in the background.

"Eames, really—"

"I've got to go, I'm sorry, love you, bye."

Arthur dropped his phone.

* * *

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Eames said, as soon as he hung up.

* * *

Arthur stared at the ceiling, heart pitter-pattering against his ribcage. His mind kept cutting itself off with thoughts like _did he just say what I think he—did he mean that he—was I just imagining—_

A knock sounded on his door.

"Arthur?" his mother called through the door.

"Y—yes?" he squeaked.

"Honey, c'mon… Daddy wants to go out to dinner." He heard her fall against the door and laugh. "Let's go."

Arthur swallowed the knot in his throat and snagged his phone, shoving it in his pocket. He would have to call Eames back.

He was completely lost in his head the entire trip down the stairs. It was a miracle he got into the car at all, only jarred out of his stupor when his dad screamed at his mom to stop stumbling around the yard like a drunken whore because she was making a scene in front of the neighbors.

"So, Arthur, how's school?" Arthur's father asked him as he drove, glancing at the boy through the rearview mirror.

Arthur sat off to the right in the backseat, staring out the window. "Fine."

The man snorted.

"Fine, sir," he repeated, sitting up at attention.

"You got yourself a girlfriend yet?"

"No, sir."

"Any prospects?"

There weren't of course, but Arthur gave the same answer he always did. "Yes, sir."

"Good boy."

Silence.

"You join any sports teams?" his father asked.

"No, sir. I may try for the basketball team next semester. Dom Cobb said he'd put in a good word for me."

"Well, that's good. I was on the basketball team when I was your age."

"I know… ah, sir."

Silence.

Arthur swallowed, feeling the air become increasingly more uncomfortable. He never knew what to say to his father other than his typical yes or no sir answers. He never knew what would be wrong, what would send the man flying into a rage. It made him feel like he was always sitting on pins and needles, nervously awaiting a question and hoping he had the right selection of answers in his brain.

There was sweet relief when his father parked the car at the restaurant. At least if he said something his father disapproved of, he was in public and therefore any kind of real punishment would be delayed until later or possibly, hopefully, forgotten about.

Unfortunately, he discovered quickly that he had _other_ problems.

He spotted Ariadne, all tiny and adorable over at a table, flirting a little to get a larger tip. If Ariadne was there, then that meant…

"C'mon, baby," Arthur's mom said, shoving him on the shoulder. "Let's go sit down, okay? You know how Daddy doesn't like to wait."

Arthur wanted to scream out and run away, or perhaps just die, but he couldn't show one shred of panic. He told himself to calm down, that everything was fine. After all, Ariadne and Eames might have worked in the same restaurant, but that didn't mean he'd even see Eames there. The place was packed. Everything would be _fine_.

Except everything _wasn't_ fine. Everything wasn't fine because that was Eames _over there_ … Three tables away.

Arthur sank down in his seat and tried to keep his breathing steady. It was like he could feel Eames against his back, heat emanating off of his frame like the fucking _sun_. He was still dazed over Eames's almost-maybe-maybe-not confession on the phone, and now he was having to face him with having pretty much _no_ time to think about it.

There was also the fact that Ariadne looked over her shoulder then, spotted him, started to wave, and then recognized that he was with his parents and possibly noticed his high school uniform and… _fuck_ …

"Evening, folks, I'm Eames. I'll be your server."

Yes, dying sounded like a great idea.

From the look on Eames's face when he noticed Arthur, he shared the same sentiment.

Still, Eames recovered beautifully and cracked a smile. Arthur wanted to growl when his father sneered at Eames's crooked teeth.

"What would you like to drink? Can I interest you in an appetizer?"

"Get me some of your best wine," Arthur's mom said, winking at him. Arthur swallowed down his horror over the fact that his mom was _flirting_ with Eames.

"Water's fine," his father said, always the cheapskate despite his riches. "Arthur?"

Arthur wanted soda. Actually, he wanted to bang his head against the table until he knocked himself unconscious, but he couldn't do either, so he mumbled, "I'll have… I'll have water too. Please."

He didn't look up at Eames. He _couldn't_ look up at Eames. He thought that he'd give everything away with that one look, so he just stared down at the tabletop.

"All right, I'll be right back with those," Eames said and was gone in a flash.

* * *

"Shit, shit, _shit_ ," Eames said under his breath as he entered the swinging doors of the kitchen. He was ready to pull his hair out.

One of the other waiters laughed, saying something about how the man never tips well despite the fact that he's fucking rich. That man was Arthur's _father_. _Arthur_ was in the restaurant. _With his parents_.

"I'm fucking doomed," he sighed, filling up two glasses of water. "I'm dead. They might as well dig my grave now."

"You're damn right!"

Eames cringed. Ariadne stood behind him with her hands on her hips, glaring pointedly at him. Eames shrank under her gaze. "I suppose I need an explanation?"

"I'd like to know some things, yes. You know, when you told me he was older, I didn't believe you, but I gave you the benefit of a doubt, and now he's here in a fucking _school uniform_. If this is some kind of kinky game you enjoy, I really wouldn't have invited his parents along for the ride… Agh, you know, I _knew_ he looked familiar, and now I know why. I'd seen him here with his family about a half a year ago. You're a sick bastard, Eames!"

Eames spread his arms, offended. "Wha—you're making assumptions!" He placed the water glasses carefully on a tray and left the kitchen to get the wine, but more so to avoid Ariadne.

Knowing Ariadne though, she'd be just as ready for this fight after closing time as she was right now when they were busy as hell.

He tried not to think about that, setting the drinks down on the table with his best plastered on smile. "All right then, what can I get for you lovely folks this evening?"

Arthur still wouldn't look up at Eames, and Eames for one was grateful. Still, he couldn't help but stare at the boy's parents.

His _parents_.

It was like a smack in the face along with a screaming, _Hey, remember how that boy you're fucking is only sixteen?_

Arthur looked like his mother. He grinned the same way as she did when drunk, and they had the same dark hair. His mother was a woman who clearly had been something special back in the day, but her beauty had faded with age, alcoholism, and loneliness.

Arthur's father was built somewhat like Eames, but he was so dressed up in his business suit that it'd be hard for anyone to notice. His nose sloped the same way as Arthur, the pupils of his eyes were just as dark, and they had the same ears. He also seemed to be the kind of guy Eames hated more than anyone else with his permanent frown and air of unwarranted importance, like it was a _privilege_ for Eames to be serving him.

Eames wrote down their orders. Arthur's was a direct copy of his father's, like he couldn't think for himself when the man was around… Either that, or he just chose not to.

Everything surprisingly seemed to go off without a hitch from there, at least until he'd put the food on the table. Eames was checking up on one of his other tables when he noticed with horror as Arthur was smacked upside the back of his head by his father.

"Elbows off the table, Arthur," he said, voice emotionless. "You're not a barbarian."

"Sorry. Sir."

Eames nearly crushed the glass in his hand over it. Arthur ventured a glance in Eames's direction, and suddenly Eames's chest was filling up with regret, and he had to get away.

Two minutes later, Arthur found Eames smoking in the bathroom.

Eames said the only thing he could think of. "What the fuck are you _doing_ here?"

"My father brought me," Arthur replied. "It's not like I asked him to bring me here. I didn't even know where we were going. It was just a coincidence."

For some reason, Eames felt angry over it. He wanted it to be Arthur's fault. He didn't want to think that destiny or something was pulling them together. He didn't want any kind of mushy, gooey, _romantic_ thoughts about this _young_ boy in his brain because that meant things were much more fucked up than he thought.

He remembered then how he'd said the L-word to the sixteen year old hopelessly in love with him over the phone. _Fuck_.

"About earlier," Eames said slowly.

"It was an accident," Arthur replied, voice toneless as he unzipped his fly and started relieving himself in a urinal. "I know you didn't… _mean_ it."

Eames didn't know what to say to that, but he felt terrible.

Arthur chuckled mirthlessly. "We all say things we don't mean. I'm not disappointed if that's what got you all worried. What we have… it's just… fucking and fooling around. There aren't really any _feelings_ involved, right? I mean, that'd just be stupid."

Arthur washed his hands and left, waving.

He wasn't fooling Eames at all.


	8. Bite Hard (part 8)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Eight

The next time Arthur was over, neither of them mentioned what happened at the restaurant, but it was clear that it had eaten Arthur up inside. He was running a fever of one-hundred-and-one and hadn't appeared to have slept a wink if the deep, dark circles were any indication.

They didn't even have sex. The moment Arthur got inside, he leaned into Eames's chest and almost immediately collapsed.

When he woke up a few hours later, Eames was tending to his fever by wiping his face down with a cold cloth, and he tried to speak.

Eames interrupted before he could do so. "You're doing too much."

"I'm okay," Arthur croaked.

Eames shook his head, brushing a finger down Arthur's jawline. "You're not. You can't handle all of this on your own."

"I can sleep when I'm here," Arthur replied, shutting his eyes.

The words burned in Eames's chest.

"Go back to sleep."

He did, and thankfully, his fever broke about an hour later. Eames sat curled up on the other side of the bed, petting Arthur's hair, watching him until he realized what he was doing. It made him pause, horrified… and then he continued.

He tried to convince himself that he was only doing it for the boy's sake, feeling guilty and feeling sorry for him but…

He couldn't pretend that the little _love you_ in the middle of his goodbye didn't have at least a grain of truth to it. He wasn't stupid enough to deny it forever, even though he'd been doing a pretty good job denying it up until that point.

Arthur's eyes fluttered open again, and he smiled a little at him, and the smile made Eames's heart just _shatter_.

"Hey, Eames?" Arthur asked sleepily, looking as though he was about to drift off again.

"What is it, darling?" Eames asked, combing his fingers through his hair over and over.

"I was… wondering… I mean, who was the person you gave your virginity to?"

Eames sighed through his nose, looking up to the ceiling. "It was a girl named Roxanne. We met in school. She was my first real muse."

Arthur scooted closer to Eames, trying to absorb his body heat. "Did you love her?"

That was the real question, Eames decided. Still, he couldn't help but answer. "There were days when I did. There are days that I still do. You can ask Yusuf though; there are some days where I refuse to admit I ever had feelings for her even though I know that's not true."

That sounded familiar.

"Well, you guys were _together_ , right? I mean, like boyfriend-girlfriend?"

"We were lovers, and she used me to fill a void in her life left by someone in her past. I still don't know who that was, but I was too caught up in my idolization to realize that I was being used."

"She must have been really beautiful if you idolized her so much."

Eames shrugged, pulling his hand from Arthur's hair and wrapping it around his shoulder. "She was… interesting looking. She had a large nose, and she had dark hair and green eyes so pale they looked gold. She had a great smile too. She was really skinny and covered in tattoos, and she had her navel pierced. She was a year older than me."

The imagery of her melting into his head was enough to make a knot start to form in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly for a moment, trying to mentally erase her like he usually did.

"So… what happened to her? Did you just grow wise or something? Did she cheat on you?"

"She probably did cheat on me… Actually, I'm pretty sure she did, but I knew she did and didn't care. She's dead now."

Arthur's eyes opened wide, and he sat up. " _What?_ " he asked, stunned. "How did she die?"

"Heroin overdose," Eames said.

Arthur stared down at Eames, and his hand brushed across Eames's cheek where a tear had managed to escape. He knelt down then, kissing Eames slowly, and Eames knew.

He knew that there was more than a grain of truth in that confession…

…and he knew he was fucked.

* * *

On Friday, Arthur's father smacked him so hard he hit the wall.

He pressed his palm into the hot, red mark and looked up at the man in confusion and the slightest hint of fear.

"I talked to Phil today," Arthur's dad said as an explanation.

It took Arthur a moment before he realized who he meant… his principal, Mr. Monroe.

"What did he tell you?" Arthur asked, wincing as he rubbed his cheek.

"He told me your grades had been slipping. Do you know how hard I worked to get you into that school?"

"I'm sorry—"

"You should be!" he shouted, and Arthur shoved his back against the wall so hard that he thought for a second he might phase through it. " _I'm_ sorry that I have such a fucking failure for a son! You don't even have extra-curriculars, and you can't handle a fucking A average? How are you going to achieve anything in your goddamn life if you can't do that?"

Arthur opened his mouth to say something, _anything_ , but his father took that moment to backhand him so that he stumbled and banged his head on the railing of the stairs. As he struggled to get up, his dad kicked him in the gut, sending him crashing to the floor again.

"You ungrateful little shit," he hissed.

Arthur grabbed hold of the railing to pull himself up, coughing. After such an event, he generally would go up to his room and study through the tears.

…but at that moment, he stared at his father, and he could hear the distant ticking of the clock in the hall.

Tick-tock.

His mother stood on the landing with her arms folded around her, and she did _nothing_.

Tick-tock.

 _Snap_.

He whirled on his heel and marched out of the house.

He walked away, without his jacket, into the freezing air and didn't stop until he was at Eames's apartment.

He knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again to the same result and ended up slumping down against the door and burying his face against his knees. No one called him to tell him to come home. No one even called to yell at him.

He called Cobb.

"Hey," Cobb said, and he could hear Mal talking excitedly in the background in French. Cobb must have been at her house. "Something wrong?"

"No," Arthur lied. "Just… ah… I was just… what did you do for that research assignment in Mr. Stile's class when you were there?"

"Uh… I don't remember, but I think I still have the file on my laptop. Do you want me to email it to you?"

Arthur sighed as quietly as he could. "Sure, that'd be great. I think I'm gonna try to go to sleep early. Thanks."

"No problem. You sound like you need the sleep. Are you sure you're all right? I can come get you, if you need to get out for a while."

"I'm fine. Just tired. Good night, Cobb. Tell Mal that we—"

"I know, I know, we need to hang out soon. Make a little time for us and we'll see."

He knew Cobb was teasing, but it made him feel worse, so he said a curt goodbye and hung up.

What felt like a few moments later, Arthur was being roused by a hand on his shoulder.

It wasn't Eames, but Yusuf.

"Arthur," Yusuf said sternly.

Arthur rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Hi…" he said sleepily. "Should I go?"

Yusuf grabbed Arthur around the elbow and pulled him to his feet, and for a minute Arthur thought the man intended to throw him out altogether, but instead he took him down one floor and let him inside his apartment.

"Wh… what are you doing?" Arthur asked when Yusuf shut the door with a quiet click behind him.

"Sit down on that stool over there," Yusuf ordered gently and went digging in his refrigerator. A moment later, he had a Ziploc bag full of ice wrapped in a hand towel pressed to Arthur's forehead.

"Ow," Arthur winced a little.

"You've got a knot on your head," Yusuf said. "What happened? Eames didn't do this, did he?"

"No," Arthur replied tiredly. "No, I just uh—I hit my head on the banister at my house."

"How did that happen?"

"My Dad… he uh… He hit me. I fell."

Yusuf hummed dejectedly. "Well, that explains where the bruise on your cheek came from. You all right?"

Arthur sniffed. "It's happened before."

"So, you ran out and came here, did you?" Yusuf asked, removing the ice pack to see if the swelling had gone down. He pressed it back and then had Arthur hold it while he went digging around the cupboards for tea.

Arthur vaguely remembered Eames mentioning once that Yusuf felt the need to make tea for every guest that ever entered his home.

"I didn't really… plan on anything. I just sort of showed up here. It's the only place I can really go."

Yusuf set to boiling some water. "Do you find that decision wise? What if you were followed?" he asked, busying himself with his work and never looking at Arthur.

"Nobody at home cares enough about me to go looking for me. I'm pretty sure they'd be relieved if I never came back… one less mistake to have to look in the eye… Dad'll probably just go back to his business trips, first thing tomorrow."

Yusuf's shoulders stiffened at such a response, and Arthur wondered how much he knew about him. Had Eames told him anything? Had Eames told him _everything_? He didn't mind that, but… he would have liked to know what secrets Eames was spilling behind his back.

"Hey, Yusuf."

"Yes?"

"Did you know Roxanne?"

Yusuf snorted. "Oh, I knew her all right."

"What was she like?"

Yusuf sighed, scrubbing his forehead with his palm. "She ah… Well, she had Eames wrapped around her little finger from the moment he met her. He thought she was this astounding, wonderful thing. I really don't know what he saw in her. Still, she caught him in her spider web from day one of school. He thought that she loved his art. What she loved was the fact that he came from a well-off family, but he won't believe that, even today. See, the thing was Roxanne had a bit of a heroin habit. Oh, and the award for understatement of the year goes to me… but yeah, she had a heroin habit, and she got Eames wrapped up in that shit too. They ended up flunking out of school and spending all the money he had on it, and when his parents cut him off for being wasteful, she started selling herself to pay for their habit. Eames let her do it because he was just as addicted as she was."

"…and then she overdosed."

Yusuf glanced up, pouring the water into glasses and dropping tea bags in. "So he told you that, did he?"

Arthur nodded, accepting the tea with a slice of lemon and some sugar. "That's about all that he told me."

"It's shocking that he told you about her at all."

Arthur sipped at the tea. "I guess."

"Did he tell you how he tried to kill himself?"

"What?"

"Surely you've seen the scars on his arms, right? I mean, you've been sleeping with him."

Arthur blushed a little. "I didn't realize that they were… Well, maybe I just didn't want to think about it…"

"Eames is a complicated individual," Yusuf sighed. "Either that or he's far too simple."

…and, sitting there in Yusuf's apartment, hands wrapped around a glass of tea, Arthur was no longer sure about his and Eames's relationship. He was still sure of his feelings... he was still sure that he loved him, but… After all the time he'd spent deciding not to care about all of the things he was doing, he was finally starting to feel it.

He felt it sparking at the bottom of his feet, building and building through his legs, his stomach, up to his shoulders and to the top of his head, and… there it was.

 _Regret_.

* * *

It had literally been the worst night of Eames's life.

Well, not literally, but it _had_ been his worst night at the steakhouse at least.

Ariadne had been on his case nearly non-stop since Arthur had dropped in, and the girl had a talent for being able to just _go_ for _hours_ and always had new accusations to make. He was beginning to not like her so much.

On top of that, the restaurant had been absolutely _swamped_ , and Eames had to spend most of his tip money paying for an entire tray of food that he accidently dropped. He hadn't slept the night before, and he was out of cigarettes, and some kid had spilled a sticky red juice down Eames's front. He was there two hours after closing time.

So, when he trudged up the stairs and found Yusuf waiting for him outside his apartment door, he was about ready to cry or punch him in the head. "What," he said flatly.

"Come with me," Yusuf said and led him back down the stairs to his own apartment. When he opened the door, Eames immediately spotted Arthur curled up on Yusuf's couch wrapped in an afghan, asleep.

"What is he—" Eames started to question.

"I found him hunched against your flat's door, asleep. He had a knot on his head, so I brought him down here and put some ice on it. We talked for a little while, and then he fell asleep."

Eames normally would be thankful to Yusuf for helping out, but he was too agitated and exhausted and expecting Yusuf to start chewing him out like Ariadne had been. "So, this couldn't wait until morning?" Eames asked.

"Eames, he's _here_. This is getting ridiculous. He thought that this was the only place that he could go."

"Maybe it is," Eames grumbled, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion. "I don't know. Wouldn't this conversation be better in the morning when we're all awake?"

"Eames, tell him to go home. He'll listen to you."

"Yusuf, he's asleep. He'll leave in the morning. Fuck, you want me to just carry him upstairs?"

" _No_ , Eames. You can't just condone this behavior. He'll start moving his things in, and I shouldn't have to tell you how difficult things would get then. Your little _secret_ would definitely be revealed by then."

Eames sighed through his nose. "You don't know that—"

Arthur stirred on the couch, nearly rolled off of it. When he lifted his head, blinking crookedly, he couldn't help but smile a little. "Eames," he said, and he sounded almost _hopeful_ , but then his smile faltered a little, like he was noticing something unpleasant.

"Arthur, what are you doing here?" Eames asked in exasperation. He didn't want to have the conversation. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to go to sleep, and the fact that he couldn't was starting to piss him off. It wasn't even justified anger, but he had it none the less, and it seemed to be in search of a target.

"Oh, um… Yusuf brought me down here. I was waiting outside your door for you and—"

"Yes, I know that, but why are you here _at all_? It's Friday. You knew I would be at work."

Apparently his anger had found its target.

"I… I'm sorry. I forgot. I was upset, and I wasn't thinking—"

"No, you weren't thinking, were you?" Eames spat back. "Jesus, Arthur, just sitting in the hallway like that, you might as well have been painting a target on my door. What did you want? What was so bloody important that you waited for me there?"

"I… nothing, I just—"

" _Nothing_? You had _no_ bloody reason? That's so fucking expected."

Arthur jumped to his feet then, and his eyes were large and wet and burning. "What the fuck do you mean by that?"

Eames groaned, running his hands over his face and through his hair. "You can't just come running to my flat whenever you feel like you need some attention. _Fuck_ , Arthur, I've got better things to do than _babysit_ you."

Arthur gaped for a moment, letting out stammering sounds before finally managing, "I… wasn't asking anything from you, Eames. I-I just wanted to—feel _safe_ , you know? So—"

"For God's sake, Arthur, _grow a fucking_ _ **backbone**_! God, you're… Ugh, you're such a whiny little bitch, do you know that? Jesus, I… I haven't finished a damn painting these past two weeks because I've been up taking care of or worrying about _you_ , and now Ariadne's on my case, and I'm distracted, and it's starting to affect me at the steakhouse too—"

"I never _asked_ you to take care of me or worry about me!" Arthur shouted, voice cracking, fists clenching until they were white-knuckled. "You can't blame me for that!"

Eames knew that was true, but he couldn't stop himself. "You're the _idiot_ who thinks that this is more than what it is!" he shouted. "It was just sex, Arthur. That's all it _ever_ was!"

The look on Arthur's face was enough to make an apology press up against the back of Eames's teeth, but before he could say anything, Arthur shouted, "So you just used me like Roxanne fucking used you? I must be as good as the fucking heroin, huh! Good for me! That's just fucking _awesome_ to hear, Eames!"

" _Don't talk about Roxanne_! You didn't know her!" Eames screamed, apology forgotten about. "You don't know one _goddamned_ thing!"

"She was a glorified _whore_!" Arthur seethed, apparently feeding off of Eames's anger, aiming to hurt. "She was a whore and you were her _bitch_! It must have felt pretty shitty, huh! I know it does because you made me into your bitch _and_ your whore! Fuck you, Eames! I wish you had died that night you slit your wrists!"

All of the words drained out of Eames as surely as the color did from his face. Arthur marched out, slamming the door behind him. The sound rattled, echoing through the entire room, followed by the most painful silence.

It was as if Eames had been drunk and smacked sober. Everything he had said, everything Arthur had said, _everything_ roared inside his ears.

He moved towards the door to give chase, but Yusuf grabbed him by the arm.

Eames had forgotten Yusuf was even there.

"I have to talk to him," Eames said desperately, and his voice was choked and wobbly. "I shouldn't have said… I need to apologize—"

"Eames… I hate to say this, but… it's better this way."

"The hell it is!" Eames shouted, struggling against Yusuf's grip, but he was just too tired. "He was just trying to find some comfort, and I went and _screamed_ at him!" He gave up the struggle and just stared at the floor, sniffling pathetically. "I hurt him."

Yusuf patted Eames's back in sympathy. "Sleep on it, Eames. It's better—"

" _Don't_. Don't say that. Don't say it's better this way, Yusuf… Fuck… _Fuck_ … I feel like my heart's been ripped out, and you think I'm fucking better off? You said that about Roxanne too… Why did you have to tell him about that night, Yusuf? He didn't have to know that I… I wasn't trying to _kill_ myself, Yusuf. I was already _dead_."

Yusuf sat Eames down on the couch, and Eames buried his face in his hands, sobbing openly. "You're such a bastard," Eames whimpered. "I can't believe you… I trusted you, you little shit. That was personal. I didn't want him to know—"

Yusuf sighed. "Eames."

"Maybe I should have died that night," Eames mumbled. "He never would have gotten wrapped up in this mess."

"Don't say things like that."

"Fuck you, Yusuf."

"Get some sleep, Eames."

Eames barely slept that night, curled up in the same spot Arthur had slept in on Yusuf's couch. Yusuf wouldn't let him leave, for fear he'd slash his wrists again.

It was clear now that Eames had fallen just as hard as Arthur had…

Eames always did have a habit of falling in love with his muse.


	9. Bite Hard (part 9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Nine

"Hey, Arthur? Arthur, what's up?"

Arthur shut his locker door and looked at Cobb. Cobb was the poster boy for concerned. "What?" he asked, and his voice cracked, and he realized he was in tears.

"Arthur," Cobb said again, and Arthur broke down. He practically fell into Cobb's arms, sobbing pitifully into his shoulder. He was thankful that most of the other students had already shuffled off to their classes, leaving the two of them alone. "Arthur, what happened? What's wrong?"

"I said some really awful things, Cobb… Me and Eames… we're over. I said some really mean stuff, and he said some really mean stuff, and now it's… I messed everything up. I know he didn't mean what he said, but… but what if he believes what _I_ said? I can't even get up the guts to call him!"

Cobb seemed to be at a complete loss, petting Arthur's back because he couldn't think of anything else. "Ah… Mal's usually better at stuff like this… Um… hey, screw that guy! He was mean to you, right? Forget him! You're better off!"

Cobb had tried for a pep-talk, but Arthur just felt more miserable.

"Even if it is true, I can't just forget about him, Cobb! Fuck, the things I said… I'm the worst person in existence…"

"Well, what did you say?"

"It doesn't matter what I said. What matters is that I didn't _mean_ any of it… but he hates me now. I know he does. He's probably even disgusted by my name… He's probably better off without me around. People generally are."

Cobb yanked Arthur away from his shoulder, setting a narrow gaze on him. "If you say something like that again, I'm gonna punch you."

"I'm sorry," Arthur said weakly. "I'm… I'm sorry…" He shook his head, saying it over and over, wiping at his tears uselessly.

Cobb didn't know what to stay then, and Arthur couldn't blame him. There was no way Cobb could understand Arthur's hysteria over even an _empty_ threat of pain. There was no way Cobb could understand that Arthur's heart had been sledgehammered to pieces. There was no way Cobb could know what Eames had said or what Arthur had said. There was nothing Cobb could do.

There was nothing to be done.

So Arthur walked away, and Cobb let him go.

* * *

When Eames didn't show up to work on Saturday, Ariadne called Yusuf. Yusuf went upstairs to Eames's apartment and knocked, even though the music was blaring so loud from inside it was unlikely that it could be heard.

Yusuf pounded on the door with both fists, and the music's volume dropped to a dull roar. "Who'sit?" came the voice from behind the wood, as though it was being shouted from across the room.

"It's Yusuf," Yusuf replied.

A moment later, there was the sound of a bottle crashing against the wall by the door. Against his better judgment, Yusuf grabbed the knob and found it was unlocked.

Eames stood in the middle of the room, arm still extended from tossing what Yusuf now noticed was a bottle of whiskey. There were glass shards on the floor, surrounding an unfinished painting of Arthur's eyes. Liquor poured down from the eyes like tears.

"Eames—" Yusuf started, but Eames picked up another bottle, this one of beer, and chucked it at Yusuf. It curved off to the far left and smashed against another unfinished painting.

"Get the hell out!" Eames shouted, and it was clear immediately that he was _drunk_. Yusuf had only seen him as bad off after Roxanne had died, but this time there was less hopelessness and more _malice_ …

…not that Eames was much of a threat when he couldn't even see straight, but Yusuf still kept his distance just in case.

"Ariadne called me and told me you didn't show up at work. You told me you were going to work this morning, Eames."

"Changed m'mind," Eames grumbled, taking a long swig out of a nearly empty bottle. "Hate that bloody place. Hate bloody Ariadne. Fuck that." He casually tossed the now empty bottle over his shoulder, seeming to get some sort of relief out of the sound of things breaking.

"So, you decided to go on a bender and drink until you pass out?" Yusuf asked, trying to keep his voice neutral so as not to set him off any more than he already had.

"Can't sleep otherwise. Thought this w's better'n shootin' up, right? Fuck you."

"Eames, please try to listen to a little reason, would you? Do you really think this is going to help anything? It's not even going to help you feel better."

Eames swayed a little, grabbing hold of the kitchen table for support. "Don't care," he said.

Yusuf scrubbed his face with his hand, sighing. "Arthur was a sixteen year old _boy_ , Eames. Your relationship was wrong in the worst possible way."

Eames looked at Yusuf, eyes watery, and said, "Then why'd it feel right?"

Yusuf shrugged, frustrated. "I don't know. Maybe you're mental?"

"He w's so beautiful, Yusuf. He w's so _bloody_ _ **beautiful**_. I went 'n fucked that up."

"Eames, you caused him plenty of unnecessary stress by being with him. Ending that will be better for him in the long run, especially if you're going to act this way."

"Didn' have t'drink when Arthur w's 'round."

Yusuf crossed the room and shoved Eames down into a chair because he was afraid he'd topple over otherwise. "You don't _have_ to drink now. You're just being an arsehole to yourself. Try to think about what's best for both of you, please? For the love of all that's good and holy, _please_?"

Eames stared at him blankly for a long time, taking his time registering the words, and then he said, "I love Arthur."

"I know you do. That's why you need to do what's best for him."

"…but… but what'f, what'f he feels alone? He can't handle 'mself on his own. He hasn' got anyone. He hasn' got anyone at all. He's gon' cut his wrists in the bath, he is, because I said I didn' care 'bout him."

"Eames, let me reiterate," Yusuf said sternly, grasping Eames's shoulders so that he wouldn't look away. "Arthur is _not_ _**you**_. This isn't you and Roxanne, Eames."

"It's real bloody close. 'Cept Arthur's not as strong 's I w's."

"I think you're weaker than you give yourself credit," Yusuf said quietly. "I also think Arthur has more inner strength than he's aware of."

"Y' don't know 'im like I do."

"Maybe I don't, but he was brave enough to follow his heart back to you despite the moral implications and possible consequences."

"Didn' follow his heart. Followed his prick."

"Are you sure?"

Eames squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to quell the spinning. "Arthur doesn' love me. No one does."

Yusuf groaned in frustration. He'd had this conversation with Eames before.

"Believe what you want to believe, Eames, but you can't just spiral into alcoholism over it. Arthur would be ashamed of you."

Eames whined.

"Get a hold of yourself. Jackass."

"You don' control my life," Eames spat.

"Someone has to pick up the reins. Seriously, Eames, get a _hold_ of yourself. You told me yourself that Arthur loved you. If what you're saying now is true, that Arthur _doesn't_ love you, then he should be fine, which means _you_ should be fine."

"Roxanne died to get away from me," Eames said, "because I asked her to stop using 'n marry me."

This was a development Eames had not told Yusuf. Yusuf had the suspicion that Eames hadn't told _anyone_. He was thrown for a loop for a moment.

"Said I could make 'er happier than all that shit in 'er veins. She said… She said that I never made 'er happy. Not once."

Yusuf didn't know he was capable of hating Roxanne more than he already did, but apparently he could. He felt every muscle in his body tense up in anger, but he had better control over his rage than Eames ever did.

"What did you ever see in her, Eames?" he found himself asking.

"Whatever Arthur saw in me. Nothing."

"Stop talking like that. You're going to make me worry about you." Yusuf had to go to work that afternoon; he couldn't stay and make sure Eames didn't do anything stupid.

When Eames passed out, Yusuf asked a neighbor to check up on him every couple of hours, claiming that he was 'sick'. It was a piss poor lie, but the woman didn't comment on it.

He just hoped things would get better before they got worse.

* * *

After doing his punishment, Arthur went home. It wasn't like there was anywhere else for him to go.

He curled up in his computer chair, doing his homework, relieved that at least his father was gone. He'd been having moments of overwhelming despair, causing him to fall into blubbering fits, and should his father have seen that, he knew he would have been beaten, tears being a sign of weakness and all.

He was starting to feel angry.

Replaying the words Eames had said through his skull over and over had done nothing to dull the pain of them, only intensify it. He had begun to think that perhaps there was some truth behind him having no backbone and being a whiny bitch and Eames never caring about him, not even a little, and that set him ablaze with rage. He felt used and tossed out and pathetic and stupid. He wanted to scream.

Then, he would remember how Eames had cleaned him up, how Eames had tended to his fevers, how Eames had gently touched him and made him feel alight with sensations he wasn't aware he could have. He remembered being held while he slept and remembered how he'd been comforted when he'd show moments of weakness…

…and that was when he was a blubbering mess again because it didn't make _sense_. If Eames didn't care about him like he said he didn't, then why would he do all of those things? Why would he risk life and limb just to be with him?

…and if he did care, why would he say those awful things?

It made Arthur angrier at himself than anything because he couldn't figure it out.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Arthur said curtly, turning a page to at least give the illusion that he'd made some sort of progress.

His mother cracked the door and leaned inside. She seemed, surprisingly, to be sober for once. "Hey, baby," she said, smiling, and it made Arthur's heart sink. Eames used to call him all sorts of pet names. "Your friend Dom called. He said he was coming over with that girl Mal."

"Thanks," Arthur said, but he was sure she heard the frustration in his voice. He knew what was coming with Mal tagging along. Cobb was looking to help him out, and Arthur hated it.

"Is something wrong? You've been acting kinda mopey today."

Fury bloomed in his chest, fiery in its intensity. " _Real_ observant, Mom," he seethed, never looking up from his homework. "It's nice of you to take the time to even remember you have a son, so really, I am impressed by your ability to notice I'm upset today. Forget all of those other days where I was getting my ass handed to me by my father or the nights when I was so pissed off that I left home or just didn't come home. Today, you noticed I've been _mopey_. Great job. You deserve a fucking 'Mother of the Year' award for that."

He didn't have to look up to know that it stung. He didn't care. She wasn't any sort of threat to him like his father was, and he knew she wasn't stupid enough to go crying to him.

"Arthur… _darling_ ," she said, her voice a broken little sigh. "Listen—"

"No, _you_ listen!" he shouted, and he slammed his hands against the desk, pushing himself to his feet. He was astounded by how the lid had blown off of his anger, surging through his veins as violently as it had when he had screamed at Eames. He tried desperately to shove it down before he said more things that he would ultimately regret, but it had already flown out of control, into the ether, and he was ready to fight.

No one called him darling but Eames.

He turned his sharp eyes on her in the doorway and shouted, "Do you have any _idea_ what I go through every _fucking_ day? No, you wouldn't, would you? You're too caught up in your own pathetic little life, making love to your alcohol and boyfriend of the week! You think that I don't _notice_ this shit? I've seen it day after day after _fucking_ day since I was a little boy! Do you know what that _does_ to a person? Do you know what it _does_ to me when Dad smacks me to the point that he draws blood and you just stand there and _watch_? Do you know what it _does_ to me when I come home from school and you're asleep on the stairs? Or in _my_ bed? Or in the back yard? You just do whatever the _fuck you want_ , Mom! You can't just _do_ that when you have a son who needs you.

You have a son who _needs_ you, Mom. You have a son who needs someone to notice when he's standing in the middle of the room _screaming_ for somebody to fucking _help him_! You have a son who needs someone to realize that he's losing his mind and about to snap because he can't put up with this shit every day! _You have a son who doesn't even know if the love he has felt is real because he doesn't even know what love_ _ **feels**_ _like_!"

By the time he finished, he was shaking so badly he thought he might fall down, and he was sobbing so openly he was afraid he might choke on them. He couldn't remember ever crying as hard as he was, not even after he'd left Yusuf's apartment.

"But forget it…" he said, losing steam as he tired himself out. "You've got all of the alcohol and sex that you could ever need, so who cares about what I need? Why don't you just keep worrying about _you_ , okay?"

She was in tears too, silent ones, arms folded around her like that night on the stairs. "I… I don't know what to say…" she said weakly.

"Don't say anything," Arthur growled, finding one last reserve of malice. " _Get the hell_ _ **out**_!"

She did. She was gone so fast he didn't even have time to blink… and then he sat back down, looked at his homework, buried his face in his arms, and _cried_.

* * *

When Cobb and Mal arrived, Arthur hadn't moved. He didn't realize they'd even come in until Mal's gentle hand pressed against his shoulder.

He lifted his head then, looking at her wearily and ashamedly. "What all did he tell you?" he asked, sniffing and wiping at his eyes with his sleeve.

Cobb shut the door gently, and he looked guilty. "I'm sorry, Arthur."

Arthur waved it off. "Don't worry about it. It's not like it matters now anyways…"

Mal cradled his head against her chest, combing her fingers through his hair. "He did not tell me much, Arthur. He only told me about your older friend and how he had hurt you."

Arthur laughed mirthlessly. "I'm sure I hurt him too. We both said some pretty awful things."

"How did all of this happen, _mon cher_?" she asked, and she was being calmer than he'd expected.

Arthur pulled away from Mal's touch, dropped his hands into his lap, and started talking.

He told the both of them everything, starting with the way he had snapped, how he had met Eames at a gay club and gotten drunk and lied to him and went home with him. He told them how he had cried before he left Eames's apartment and how kind and gentle Eames had been to him when he was in pain. He told them how he couldn't get Eames out of his head and just wanted to see him one more time and how he knew one more time wouldn't be enough. He told them how Eames had painted beautiful pictures of him and made him feel like he was worth something. He told them about Yusuf and Ariadne and karaoke and about how he'd fallen in love because even if Eames didn't completely understand him, he made the attempt to. He told them how Eames had nursed his fevers and kissed away his tears and how he had not painted the scar on his ass. He told them about the horrible fight in detail, each word still ringing in his ears as a reminder.

When it was over, Arthur was completely spent. It didn't feel like that much until he got it out in the open, and he had to admit that he felt a little bit better.

"Oh, _Arthur_ ," Mal cooed, and he was thankful that she wasn't mad at him. In fact, she and Cobb were both wearing sympathetic faces, and Arthur knew he would be friends with them forever.

"I don't know what to do," Arthur sighed, running a hand through his hair. He felt like he'd been dried up after crying so much. "I want to… at least _apologize_ , but I can't get up the nerve to even text him. I suck. I really _don't_ have a backbone…"

"Do you want me to call him?" Cobb asked. "I can tell him—"

"No… No, don't do that. I just… I need to think about this. I need to give him some time to cool down so he doesn't just immediately hang up or ignore me or… anything like that… I'll be okay…"

Mal slept next to Arthur that night, singing him French lullabies.

* * *

When Eames woke up, Yusuf and Ariadne were there.

"Oh, bugger off," he grumbled, covering his face with his pillow. "I'm sober now. I'm not going to bloody kill myself."

"Do you want the hangover pills or not?" Ariadne asked.

Eames sighed, removing the pillow from his eyes long enough to snag them and swallow them dry. "Is it still Tuesday?" he asked.

"It's Wednesday," Yusuf said flatly, " _evening_."

"Oh," Eames said.

He'd gone on another bender Tuesday and apparently slept through most of Wednesday. He would have immediately gotten up with plans of adding a third day to his binge, but he couldn't afford it.

"Eames, you can't keep doing this," Ariadne said.

"Are you inside my head?" Eames asked but waved it off immediately. "Why are you both here?"

"We're worried about you, you jackass," Ariadne growled. She didn't sound too worried, but he was sure she had a right to be angry. She'd told him in the past that her dad had fallen off the wagon when twelve-stepping some years ago, and she hadn't seen him since.

Guilt panged in the back of his head, but he let it be for the moment since he felt like shit anyways. "I don't need you to worry about me. I'll bounce back soon enough." He rolled over, facing the wall instead of them, and that was when he spotted another one of Arthur's little stray hairs, dark and slightly curled, on the pillow.

For a moment Eames decided _fuck eating_ and thought another binge would be absolutely glorious. He clenched his fists into the sheets until that moment passed.

"Soon enough is not soon enough," Yusuf replied, and he sounded as weary as Eames felt. He'd been dealing with Eames's pathetic attitude problem for days. Sure, Eames couldn't remember most of it, but he did still remember pieces of it. "Maybe I'm _naïve_ or something, but I for the life of me can't understand what's made you such a mess. I know you cared about Arthur a lot, but—but… I mean, did you actually fall in love with him? Did you really fall in love with a sixteen-year-old?"

Eames rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "Age is just a number, Yusuf. I loved him for who he was on the inside. I still do. Maybe I'm a fucked up individual, and maybe I should be locked up for an eternity for even going so far as pondering the idea, but it can't change the way I feel any more than I can go back in time to undo everything that happened. It's not like I _planned_ on it. I would have very much liked to have not fallen in love with a _boy_ , but it happened… and now I'll never see him again."

Yusuf groaned. "Damn it… I've been against this the whole time but… damn it, Eames, just _call_ him. If it's going to be over, it should at least end on good terms so he's not afraid of relationships for the rest of his life. Fuck."

Eames watched Yusuf look to Ariadne for support, and she just nodded. "He's still a good kid. He deserves that much."

Eames glared at them as he rolled out of bed. "I hope for your sake he's still alive," he said, and snagged his phone off of the counter, dialing.

* * *

Arthur paused in his cleaning of Mrs. Porter's classroom when he noticed she'd left a stack of essays on the desktop. He couldn't help but dig through them until he found his. She'd given him an A, and written next to the letter _You're a talented writer, Arthur. You see things other people don't take the time to see. Perhaps with a bit more focus, you could be quite the accomplished young man._

"Wow," Arthur said aloud. He'd written the paper through streams of tears and had never expected her to say something so _nice_ , especially since he'd rather ungracefully ralphed all over her. The idea that she thought he was talented at writing made his heart swell a little, though he couldn't identify what the emotion was.

He was about to sit down and reread his paper to see what the appeal was, when his phone started ringing from his jacket slouched across a desk.

After a little digging, he found it and flipped it open. "Yes, hello?" he asked.

"…Arthur?"

The voice immediately brought him to tears.

He couldn't believe it.

It didn't seem _possible_.

"Eames?" he responded, voice breaking unflatteringly.

"Hello, darling," Eames replied, and Arthur sobbed.

It took a moment or two to calm himself down, but when he did, he sputtered, "Eames, I'm so… I'm so, _so_ sorry about what I said. I never should have… I didn't mean it… Oh, God, I've wanted to call you a dozen times, but I thought that—"

"I'm the one who's sorry. I'm a sorry son of a bitch. You were just trying to find some comfort, and I went and blew up at you, and I'm the absolute worst person on the planet," Eames replied, and Arthur could hear a vulnerability there that he hadn't before.

"I… I guess we're both jackasses, huh," Arthur sniffled, and he smiled for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

"You were only rising to my bait. It's all my fault."

"It's okay," Arthur said, leaning against the teacher's desk. "I've already forgiven you."

"I was never actually upset with you," Eames continued anyway. "There's just a lot that's been going on and all, and I just… took it out on you, and I never wanted to cause you any kind of pain. Are you all right?"

"Now that you're talking to me, yes," Arthur said, and it was like he couldn't _stop_ smiling. "I want to see you. We shouldn't have this conversation over the phone."

"I… I want to see you too."

"After I'm done here, could I maybe come by? I mean, I won't stay if you don't—" Arthur shut up immediately when he realized there was a figure standing in the doorway.

"Arthur?" Eames asked.

"I uh—" Arthur started, but the figure approached then, snatching his phone away and shutting it before slamming it on the desk.

Arthur had generally cleaned by moonlight, just so he wouldn't have to go back and turn everything off before leaving, but even in the dark he could tell that it was the principal, Mr. Monroe.

"On your phone, Arthur? You're supposed to be working."

"I… I'm sorry…" Arthur stammered, and he had a bad feeling.

…a really bad feeling.

It must have had something to do with the look in Monroe's eyes, a wild look that Arthur had never seen before but yet still knew it was something to be afraid of. The sick feeling he'd had that afternoon in his office returned to the pit of his gut, and he was afraid he was about to vomit again.

"You still smell of cigarettes. How many do you have on you, hm?"

"N-none," Arthur said, backing up three paces. "I'm sorry. I won't talk on my phone anymore, honest."

Monroe ran his finger along a desk and rubbed it against his thumb, looking disgusted. "You think these are clean?" he tsked at him, shaking his head. "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur… Clearly this is not satisfactory work. Normally I would suspend someone for this."

"I… I'll do a better job," Arthur said. "I'm sorry. Please don't—"

"It's all right, Arthur," he said then, and his smile was absolutely _predatory_. "You're a good kid. I understand you're going through quite a lot, so I won't suspend you…" He approached him until Arthur's waist dug into a desk as he tried to push himself back. "Of course… you'll have to make it up to me." He trailed a finger down Arthur's jawline.

"S-sir?" Arthur managed to squeak out, just before the man's hand slipped down and took hold of Arthur's groin.

Arthur flailed in an effort to escape, scrambled, stumbled, and then banged his head against a desk. He shouted out as Monroe grabbed his ankles and dragged him back far enough so that he could grab him by the back of his neck and slam him against the wall. "GET OFF OF ME!" Arthur shouted, struggling against the man's grip, but he was stronger and bigger than him.

"Shut the hell up," Monroe said, grinning his hideous little grin. "You wouldn't want dear old Daddy to find out about your _man_ , would you?"

Arthur gasped, going somewhat slack in his grip, stunned. "You don't know—"

"I saw you together."

"You… You're _lying_. You can't have—"

The man set to undoing Arthur's trousers with one hand while he explained, "After school is over, I drive through the city to get to my home. One particular evening, I was driving my usual route when I noticed someone peculiarly familiar stumbling out of a club with another man. I watched this familiar someone get onto a motorcycle with this man. The next morning, that familiar someone came to school with bite marks on his neck… bite marks that, I must say, continued to show up periodically every week, particularly along his lovely collarbone."

Arthur was horrified.

They'd been seen.

From the very _beginning_ , they'd been _seen_.

"You are a _shameless_ little cocktease, Arthur," Monroe said and shoved his hand down Arthur's pants.

Arthur howled out, thrashing against his touch. "Let go of me! Get off!" he begged, trying to kick, but Monroe's thigh had been shoved between his legs.

"Don't even act like this isn't what you want," Monroe growled, biting Arthur's neck so harshly he was sure he drew blood. "You like older men, huh? You like being their bitch."

"No, _no_ , leave me _alone_ ," Arthur sobbed.

"I bet that's what you said at first to him too, isn't it? We both know what you _really_ mean, you little whore. Can't let Daddy Dear find out about his little whore son, now can we?"

He turned Arthur, slamming his stomach and the injured side of his face against the wall, pinning his hands above his head. Arthur screamed, writhing and twisting away from his hand, but it seemed like no matter what he did, he was there, breathing down his neck, pulling his trousers down and down.

…and Arthur couldn't really fight back because he knew about _Eames_ … It wasn't about his father beating him or disowning him but about Eames's safety. He whimpered, pulling back his face from the wall to beg for mercy, but Monroe smashed Arthur's head back to the wall. For a moment, Arthur saw stars.

"Please, please," he pleaded. "Stop… Please, _stop_. I don't want to—I don't— Get off of me… GET OFF OF ME!"

A cracking sound echoed through the air, and Arthur just breathed. Monroe slumped against Arthur and then fell, crumpling on the floor, unconscious.

Arthur turned wildly, eyes wide and bleary with tears.

Mrs. Porter stood there looking just as surprised with the remaining legs of the chair she'd just swung into the back of the man's head clutched in her hands.

"Are you okay?" she asked breathlessly. Arthur vaguely registered that she must have come back for the essays. They hadn't all been graded… if she hadn't come… if she had taken them with her…

Arthur wailed, grabbing his trousers and pulling them up, giving the man a swift kick in the crotch. He ran out, gripping his cell phone in his fist, the other holding up his pants because the bastard had ripped off the button.

He fell down on the sidewalk a block from the school but otherwise didn't stop until he found himself at Eames's door.

When Eames opened it, Arthur shrieked, everything settling in his bones, and he threw his arms around him, holding to him with every last ounce of strength he had.

"What—What happened? What's wrong?" Eames asked.

"He… He tried to— _Eames_ …" Arthur slumped in his arms. "Eames… I'm so sorry…"


	10. Bite Hard (part 10)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Ten

Eames had felt his stomach drop the moment Arthur hung up on him, a horrible gut feeling nearly identical to the one he'd had the night Roxanne had died. His mother had always told him he had an instinct for those kinds of things (and yet he'd fallen prey to heroin abuse and a horrible girlfriend who had treated him like shit under her shoes- go figure).

When Arthur had shown up at the apartment, Eames only had one moment of relief. After that moment, when Arthur attached himself to Eames like he would die should he let go, his gut dropped to his feet, and he knew something was wrong.

"What—What happened? What's wrong?" Eames asked.

"He… He tried to— _Eames_ …" Arthur slumped in his arms. "Eames… I'm so sorry…"

"Sorry for what, darling? You don't… that's over. I said on the phone that—"

"No… I'm sorry, I'm _so_ sorry… I should have said something… but… but I _couldn't_. I _couldn't_ because he saw, and he would tell, and I didn't—"

"Arthur," Eames cooed, pulling his death grip free so that he could look into his eyes, wiping at his tears with his thumbs, "what are you talking about?"

"M… Mr. Monroe caught me on the phone with you… said he was gonna suspend me," Arthur sniffed, and he was trembling to the point that he could barely stand. "I… I asked him not to, and… then…" Arthur shook his head, fresh tears releasing themselves. "Fuck… _Fuck_ …" He was starting to sweat, starting to choke on his own air.

"Shit," Ariadne said, jumping up from her spot at Eames's kitchen table. "He's having a panic attack. Eames, do you have any brown paper bags?"

Eames couldn't remember with Arthur gasping for air in front of him. "I don't know… I don't _know_. Check the drawers!"

After violently throwing open drawers, with Yusuf helping they found one, and she made Arthur breathe in and out from the bag until he calmed down.

Eames led him to the couch to sit him down, and that was when they all noticed that his trousers were falling down.

"Arthur," Eames said, voice as gentle as possible.

Arthur pressed his face into Eames's chest, and whimpered, "Mr. Monroe tried to fuck me."

The whole room fell silent. It was like the air even stopped moving for a long moment.

"Oh, my God…" Ariadne whispered. "Are you okay?"

Arthur nodded weakly. "He just shoved his hand down my pants… and he bit me… but Mrs. Porter hit him with a chair or something, and I ran away…"

There was a long moment where nobody said anything, Eames just sitting there with Arthur leaning into him. When Eames did manage to speak, he said to Yusuf and Ariadne, "Could you leave us alone for a while?"

He knew that both of them would have plenty to say to him later, but he was thankful that for the moment they both complied.

The door shut with a click behind them. Eames watched them go and then caught sight of the unfinished painting of Arthur's eyes, alcohol dried to the canvas as smeared tears. His gaze settled there for a long time.

He realized he'd gotten Arthur's eyes down perfectly.

"Eames," Arthur said quietly. He pulled away from his arms and leveled him with a serious gaze. The tears seemed to have stopped completely. "He saw us together… I… almost let him… _do_ that because he was going to tell my dad… and I didn't think about my safety then at all. I didn't want him to tell because I promised from the beginning that I would try to protect you from all of that."

Eames felt a knot form in his throat, but he swallowed it back down. "Arthur… my _protection_ is not worth that kind of sacrifice. Are you insane?"

He nodded, smiling humorlessly. "I really must be," he said. "I mean… he didn't even know your name. He only saw you in passing. It's unlikely he could have identified you… but I _panicked_. I was scared for you."

Eames ghosted his hand over Arthur's cheek. "Idiot," he said.

"I know… It was really dumb... It _sucks_ , it really does."

Eames furrowed his brows at that. "What does?" he asked.

Arthur sniffed, and his eyes were damp, but he held his head high as he said, "It sucks… that I can't be with you."

Eames felt his heart sink in disbelief. "What? I don't—"

"It's stupid," Arthur said, standing from the couch and crossing his arms over his chest. He paced to the coffee table, snagged a cigarette, lit it, and then took up leaning against the wall. "It's so stupid… when I was talking on the phone with you, I was ready to drop everything and come running back to you and start everything up again like nothing had ever happened. I wanted to do that so badly… but when I realized that Monroe had seen us, I realized that… Well, I realized that that couldn't happen…"

"You said so yourself that there's no way he could identify me," Eames said, and he knew he was just fishing for excuses.

"I know," Arthur said, "but what about next time someone sees us?" Arthur shook his head before Eames could respond. "There will always be a next time. We can be as careful as possible, but we're both human beings. We're both prone to human error. Eventually, someone will find out about us. Someone will find out, and someone will tell, and you'll get sent to prison even if I tell them that I wanted to do it. It's still statutory, after all… and I can't… I can't _do_ that to you."

"—but… Arthur," Eames started but realized he didn't have anything to say after that.

Arthur released smoke from between his lips, slumping against the wall until he was sitting on the floor. "When we were fighting… you said that I had no backbone."

"I said I was—"

"You were right," Arthur interrupted. "I've realized something." He stood, returned to Eames's side,stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray, and sat down on the coffee table so he could make eye contact with Eames. Eames marveled at that perfect brown color and the speckles of caramel there. "I realized," Arthur continued, licking his lips, "that all the stuff that happens to me—the yelling and the beatings and the misery in my life… I let all of that happen. I never, not _once_ , stood up for myself. I sat there, screaming on the inside, never saying anything and letting it eat and _eat_ at me until I snapped.

"I don't regret that, of course… If I hadn't gone nuts, I never would have met you. I would have continued living that way, never realizing what was wrong. I would follow in my father's footsteps and work in his business. I would have no passions and no dreams. I'd probably get married to some bimbo who hooked up with me for my money, and I'd become as bitter and hateful as… I would actually _become_ my _father_. Once I came to that conclusion, I'm pretty sure I'd put a bullet through my skull and never think twice."

Eames felt lost, and he was sure Arthur could see it on his face. "Don't say things like that. You'll make my hair turn gray," Eames said, trying to lighten the air to no avail.

"I'm not going to _kill_ myself, Eames… I would have done that if I'd kept going the way I had… but… you _saved_ me. You showed me that it was okay to not only just be alive, but that I could _live_. I could feel things, and I could have opinions, and I could dream. In my life… I've never had anyone show me what it was really like to be a man. I've cowered in corners while men took swings at me, and I've held back tears for fear of being screamed at. I've curled up in bed and hoped that the next day would be better and gone nights without sleeping, worried that one little step out of line would send me crashing into oblivion… and then… you came along, and I realized that I could make mistakes and things would be okay. I realized that I might end up getting smacked around or screamed at, but if it's for something that I believe in, something that I _care about_ , then it's worth taking the hit for.

"There are things in this life worth standing up for."

Eames leaned forward, taking Arthur's jaw in his hands, and kissed him.

Arthur returned it gently before pulling away with a sigh. "I realized that you're worth taking the hit for, Eames, and I realized that _I'm_ worth standing up for… but I've still got a long way to go. I want to be able to… rise up and be a man on my own, Eames. I know that… I know that I can't do that if I stay with you. I'll let you keep doting on me, and I'll keep running away to your arms when I don't feel safe."

Eames didn't want what Arthur was saying to make sense, but it did. Knowing that didn't make it hurt any less.

"I don't want to get you in trouble because I'm weak, Eames. I want to become something that… that you can be proud of, and that I can be proud of… I want to be as beautiful as you're always saying I am."

" _Darling_ ," Eames whispered. He could feel tears pricking at the edges of his vision. He wasn't completely sure why he was so touched, but a part of him at least was _proud_ of Arthur and _proud_ of himself for being able to help him.

"You know that it's a transformation I have to make on my own… Eames, you're the only person who's ever believed in me, but now I need to believe in myself. I need to make my own decisions, and my first decision is to stop being selfish and do what's best for both of us… even if I don't want to."

Eames sniffed, wiping away one of his own stray tears and chuckled, "Life teaches you that you've got to do a lot of things you want to. You're lucky you learned that so early… So, I suppose this is our last night together, hm?"

Arthur nodded, breaking eye contact to look at the floor.

"I suppose we should make the most of it then," Eames said.

Eames took Arthur by the hands and stood while pulling him to his feet. Arthur wrapped his arms around Eames's neck and held him in a long embrace, taking in his scent and never wanting to let go.

Eames reached over and punched the button on the stereo.

Soft music lilted out from the speakers, and Eames pressed himself against Arthur, swaying side to side to it.

_I've fallen out of favor_

_And I've fallen from grace_

_Fallen out of trees_

_And I've fallen on my face_

_Fallen out of taxis_

_Out of windows too_

_Fell in your opinion_

_When I fell in love with you_

Neither of them said anything and neither of them laughed while they slow-danced. The whole world seemed to stop for the moment, giving them their time, and while they were both filled with appreciation for it, they both couldn't help but feel terrible at the same time.

_Sometimes I wish for falling_

_Wish for the release_

_Wish for falling through the air_

_To give me some relief_

_Because falling's not the problem_

_When I'm falling I'm at peace_

They knew it was going to end after that night. This was it.

_It's only when I hit the ground_

_It causes all the grief_

Arthur leaned up and pressed his mouth against Eames, kissing slowly as if time would slow with it, and Eames responded back in hopes that maybe it actually would. The only thing he hated about the kiss was that he had to close his eyes so that he couldn't look upon Arthur every second that he was there.

_This is a song_

_For a scribbled down name_

_And my love keeps writing_

_Again and again_

Arthur's hands clutched against Eames's back as he pulled away for air, gasping.

_And again and again_

Eames layered kisses along his jaw and down his neck until he found the bite mark left by that bastard.

_And again and again_

Arthur whimpered when Eames touched the mark and sighed when he leaned in to kiss it better.

_And again and again_

Eames started undoing the buttons on Arthur's shirt, kissing every bruise he found, and Arthur leaned into every touch.

_And again and again_

Eames kissed along his pelvic bones and all the way down to his knees, and Arthur fell to them then and recaptured Eames's mouth as they crouched among his scattered clothes. They just kissed and kissed and touched and touched…

_Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again_

Arthur fell to the floor and Eames wrapped his arms around him, never letting go, not taking one second for granted in knowing after that night he would not touch him. He had to memorize every part of him, trailing his fingers gently along his pectorals and his ribs and his abdomen.

_I dance with myself_

_I drunk myself down_

"Please, Eames," Arthur whispered, and he wasn't begging, only asking. Eames wrapped a hand around him and kissed his eyelids. He remembered how Roxanne had never let him touch her gently, how she'd only liked for him to rough her up, and he remembered how she'd never loved him, and it made this moment with Arthur all the more unbearably sad.

_Found people to love_

_Left people to drown_

…but Eames didn't want to think about her now. She was his past, Arthur was his present, and he didn't know what lay ahead in his future. He didn't like the idea of Arthur not being in it, but if it was what Arthur needed, then he'd be willing to suffer.

_I'm not scared to jump_

_I'm not scared to fall_

_If there was nowhere to land_

_I wouldn't be scared…_

Arthur lifted his hips off of the floor and made a small sound, and Eames pressed his forehead into Arthur's. Up as close as he was, he could see the million colors of brown in Arthur's eyes, and he remembered again that he'd gotten Arthur's eyes down perfectly.

_At all…_

"Eames," Arthur whimpered, touching his chest, fumbling with his buttons. " _Eames_."

_At all…_

No one said Eames's name quite so sweetly as Arthur did. He'd never heard that kind of love even out of his mother or father (not that that was surprising).

_At all…_

"Arthur," Eames whispered back, kissing his earlobe, and Arthur sighed, and Eames hoped Arthur could hear the love and tenderness he put into his voice with his name as well. "Arthur, _darling_."

_At all…_

Arthur's hips jerked up into Eames's touch, and he spilled onto Eames's hand. He'd barely finished before he was kissing Eames, Eames rolling to Arthur's side, hand planted against Arthur's hip, and they kissed desperately, as though the world was about to crumble beneath them.

_Fall… Fall…_

When they moved away, the surrounding area was blurry for both of them.

_Sometimes I wish for falling_

_I wish for the release_

_Wish for falling through the air_

_To give me some relief_

Arthur's hand came to rest against Eames's cheek, and Eames mirrored his movement, and they realized it.

_Because falling's not the problem_

_When I'm falling I'm a peace_

They were both crying.

_It's only when I hit the ground_

_That causes all the grief_

* * *

When Arthur woke up, he and Eames were still on the floor, wrapped around each other for warmth. The light outside was dim, meaning morning had arrived. Arthur pushed his face into Eames's chest and wished it away.

"Arthur," Eames said.

"Have you been awake this whole time?" Arthur asked, voice groggy with sleep. He never pulled away from Eames.

Eames had, but he didn't tell Arthur so. Instead, he hoisted him up and carried him to the shower where he washed both of them. They didn't speak while they bathed, nor when they fucked under the spray of water.

"I still have your sunglasses at home," Arthur said quietly while he buttoned his shirt. Eames was sitting at the kitchen table, sewing a button back onto Arthur's pants.

"Keep them," Eames said. "They're just a cheap pair anyway."

Arthur nodded. He knew that was a lie because Eames had told him they were quite the pricy gift from his best mate in high school… He was just helping to remind Arthur that he absolutely could not come back.

Eames stood, handing over the trousers with a dejected little sigh.

"Thanks," Arthur said, and he wasn't just talking about the quick sewing job. "…Eames."

The idea that he'd never say it again—

Eames kissed his forehead. "I guess this is goodbye, huh."

Arthur nodded and looked at the door with disdain. "Yeah… I… I guess so…"

"Oh… right, one more thing," Eames said, jogging to his bed and picking up a large yellow envelope and handing it to him. "Take this with you, all right?"

"What is it?"

"Just take it."

Arthur nodded, staring at it.

A long moment passed between them where nothing was done and nothing was said…

…and then Arthur threw his arms around him and hugged him so tightly he was afraid he might strangle him for a moment. "I'm going to miss you so _much_ …" He said, fighting back tears because he was tired of his eyes being sore and puffy.

Eames didn't say anything but the squeeze he gave Arthur's back was enough. When they pulled away, Eames said, "Take care of yourself, Arthur. Don't let anyone treat you like your worth less than you are. You're bloody brilliant. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."

"Thank you," Arthur said again, catching one stray tear before it got too far down his face, and he smiled at him. "Thank you, Eames."

"You don't have to thank me… I'd do anything for you."

"Goodbye… Mr. Eames."

"Goodbye, Arthur."

The click of the door shutting was the loudest sound Arthur had ever heard. He ran down the stairs to keep from going back, tears pouring from him like a faucet had been turned on within him but didn't stop until he reached the bus stop.

When he got on the bus, he opened the envelope.

Inside was a drawing of Arthur smiling. Underneath it was a note that read:

_I finally got the eyes right._

_Love,_

_Thomas Eames_

"So his name is Thomas, huh?" Arthur asked no one.

And then he laughed.


	11. Bite Hard (part 11)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.

Part Eleven

Arthur adjusted the lens on his camera, aimed, and shot. The little click of the shutter scared the bird into flying away.

"Aw, fuck," Arthur mumbled, unfolding from his crouching position to his full height and blowing some strands of long hair out of his eyes before deciding it was best just shoved behind his ears.

"Baby," Arthur's mom said from the patio, laughing, "when you said you were going to come visit, I assumed you were at least going spend a little time with me."

Arthur turned, grinning sheepishly from his spot in her backyard. "Sorry, Mom, but you know how rare it is to see birds like that so close, especially in November." He kissed her cheek on the way back inside.

When Arthur had screamed at her five years ago, he had unknowingly started off a sequence of events that led to his mother quitting her drinking, quitting her fooling around, and quitting his father. Once they'd brought forth the evidence that they'd both been abused by the man, she not only won custody of Arthur but also half of his life savings. On the way out of the courthouse, Arthur had announced to his father that he was gay because the man couldn't do one damn thing about it.

Arthur and she moved into a modest little house across town, and he lived with her up until he went to college, renting out his own apartment closer to campus. He still came to visit her on the weekends, and during his school breaks he'd usually go down to the cabin with Cobb and Mal. The two had gotten married straight out of high school, and Arthur had taken their wedding photos.

He also had some astounding shots of them curled up around each other in a bed of white sheets, smiling like they were that happiest people on earth. He had them framed back at his place.

"So, when's your Christmas break?" Arthur's mom asked, pouring him a cup of coffee while he lit up a cigarette.

"Not soon enough," Arthur laughed, accepting the coffee gratefully and leaning back against the counter to smell it. "Cobb invited me down to the cabin, but I can make it back for Christmas Eve."

"Bringing anyone with you?" she asked, sipping nonchalantly at her coffee.

"Doubt it."

"Babe, you need a _man_ in your life."

"I like my men the way I like my coffee, hot and black," Arthur teased, and his mother snorted into her cup.

He was so glad to have her in his life.

Still, all joking aside, he had to admit he was a little lonely. He'd had boyfriends, but they seldom lasted. He was usually too caught up in school to make much time for a relationship, too busy trying to maintain a 4.0 and get his degree in photojournalism… At least, that was what he told anyone who asked. Truth be told, there were just things that he immediately didn't like about Blake, or Scott, or Marshall. He could never get far in a relationship before he picked it apart and cut his ties.

He'd only had sex with one man.

In the end, Arthur couldn't help but think that his childish, sixteen-year-old self was still peeking through in that aspect, holding onto his firsts, not wanting to taint them with better or worse sex. The memories had already muddied a little with time, and he didn't want to further distort them until he couldn't remember what was what.

"Maybe I could come with you down to the cabin," Arthur's mom suggested, smiling mischievously, cheeks dimpling in the way he knew his did, "that is, unless you crazy kids want to get into some shenanigans without the parents around to call the police."

"Yeah, the kegger, crystal meth, and orgies would be a lot more awkward with you there, Ma," Arthur joked.

"Woo, sounds like a party!" She raised her hands up in a mock fashion of raising the roof.

Arthur shook his head at her, chuckling. "If you want to come, you can. I can come pick you up, and we can drive down there together. It's really beautiful when it's covered in snow."

"I suppose _I'll_ be driving then so you can take pictures. You nearly swerved off the road last time—"

"I will not take pictures and drive at the same time anymore," Arthur swore, lifting his hand in a boy scout's fashion before coming to take a seat next to his mother at the kitchen table. He sighed, leaning his head against her shoulder, and she combed her fingers into his hair.

"You hair's getting so long," she said, resting her hand in it at the bottom of his neck. "You should keep it like this. It's very becoming of you."

Arthur had made the conscious effort to grow his hair long in order to avoid looking anymore like his father than he already did. Over the years his features had become sharper, and he feared soon he would have frown lines. He'd been teased by Cobb about it in the past whenever he'd go too far to avoid it and show up to high-class events in flip-flops. Arthur generally stuck to tight jeans and sweaters, occasionally in his horn-rimmed glasses (this was getting more often as his vision progressively worsened).

"I should probably head back, get some homework done before class starts back tomorrow. I haven't finished that writing assignment yet."

"Oh, honey, you told me that's not due until next week. You don't have to overachieve all the time, you know," she teased, standing in time with him and leading him down the hall to the front door. "You know if you ever need a break, you can always come here. You've got a room."

"I know," Arthur replied, leaning in to peck her on the lips. "I'll call you when I get home to let you know I made it."

"Wear your glasses so you can read the signs."

"Yes, ma'am."

He pulled his jacket tightly over his chest as he made the short jog to his car, a forest-green Kia with a crack in the windshield. The wind was already biting cold and hinting at snow, and he wondered if a sudden blizzard would keep him out of class. He actually liked his classes and his classmates, but he would have enjoyed the day at home, comforted by the baby blue walls of his apartment and his cups of coffee.

As he started the car, the radio already playing Christmas songs, he thought of how nice it would have been for his bed to have been occupied by another warm body, the only one in particular that he was familiar with…

Sometimes it was nice to look back on the past and reminisce, even if it did make him feel a little sad. He thought fondly on the framed drawing in his bedroom. If one were to pull the back out of the frame, they would find Arthur's only picture of Eames, his blurry, dark profile in the darkness of Yusuf's car.

When he got back into the city, he pulled into a Starbucks parking lot, dialed his mom to let her know he made it back to civilization without issue and then slipped inside for another hot cup of coffee to last him the rest of the way home.

* * *

Eames didn't recognize him at first.

When he'd walked into the Starbucks, Eames was curled up in one of their overly plush chairs, drawing the other patrons in his sketchbook and warding off the cold with hot tea that wasn't nearly good enough for how much it cost. He'd merely noticed that when he walked in, he was quite the attractive young man.

He had smirked and started forming his profile on the bottom of a page while the boy waited in line, bouncing on his heels.

It wasn't a sudden discovery so much as it was a slow revealing, like the removal of clothing. There was the familiar slope of the nose and the soft pink in the lips. His jaw was more defined but still shaped the same way, and the ears were slightly flushed from the cold, partially hidden by wavy curls of hair.

When Eames realized why it was familiar, he didn't start or exclaim. Truthfully, he just sat there a bit dumbfounded, trying to remember how long it had been. Five-ish years.

 _Five_.

…and yet, he still was just as beautiful, if not more so.

 _Arthur_.

The name still tasted sweet on the tip of his tongue…

…and he figured saying hello wouldn't hurt.

Arthur sipped at the coffee, smiling contentedly as it warmed down his throat, and Eames melted at the sight of that smile, at that flash of dimples, and _oh_ , it was all coming back to him now.

Arthur didn't even notice at first when Eames took a seat across from him at the cramped little table. He dropped his sketchbook on the table and Arthur's coffee nearly tipped, the noise startling him.

"Careful there," Eames said, leaning his cheek onto his fist.

Arthur blinked a couple of times, rapidly in succession and then settled a stare at Eames, lips just slightly parted, like he no longer knew how to drop his jaw.

Eames grinned a little. "Are you old enough to be in here?"

Arthur responded, cracking a smile back, "I'm twenty-one."

"I don't believe you."

There was a long moment of companionable silence between them while they chuckled silently.

"What on earth are you doing here, Arthur?" Eames asked.

Arthur sipped at his coffee, letting the warmth melt into his eyes when he realized Eames still said his name the same way he used to. "I go to school here, the college around the corner."

"College? Jesus, it really _has_ been five years, hasn't it," Eames said, mildly astonished. "Time sure does fly, doesn't it."

"It sure does," Arthur agreed, looking down into his coffee, smiling softly. "I'm a Junior now. Let that wash over you for a minute."

Eames sighed through his nose, obviously doing so. "Fuck, I must be old now," Eames said.

"You're twenty-seven. That's not old."

"I appreciate that," Eames laughed, running a hand over his buzzed hair before dropping it to the table, fingers just a centimeter from Arthur's.

"So, what are you doing here, Eames?"

Eames shrugged, staring at Arthur's long, bony fingers on the table. "I was trying to sell some paintings. They didn't sell."

"That's too bad."

"It happens."

There was a long moment of silence, this time less companionable.

"You're thinner than I remember," Arthur said.

"You're taller," Eames replied, raising his eyebrows to make his forehead wrinkle. "Time makes fools of us all, darling."

Eames's hand slipped to Arthur's, just grazing his fingertips along the tops of the other's knuckles. Arthur watched him do it, a familiar little twinkle in his eye that Eames recognized almost instantly. This Arthur that was so different on the outside still had that youthful glint hidden there. It hadn't been robbed from him. If anything, it glimmered more brightly than before.

"Wow, look at you," Eames marveled hazily, "you're even more beautiful than I remember."

Arthur looked into Eames's eyes at that, blushing sheepishly and throwing on a pouting little frown.

"Does it sound like a line now that you're not so young and impressionable?" Eames laughed.

"Actually," Arthur replied quietly, "I was just thinking that it doesn't sound like a line when you say it."

Eames wrapped his fingers around Arthur's palm and squeezed it. "I missed you," he admitted.

"I missed you too," Arthur said, lacing his fingers into Eames's, staring down at the tabletop and at their hands. "I thought about you a lot over the years. I still do." He quirked an eyebrow when he noticed through his lashes as Eames lifted a corner of his lips into a smirk. "Not just _those_ thoughts, you fucking pervert… Sometimes, I'd just…" his thumb rubbed against the side of Eames's index finger while he used his other hand to awkwardly adjust his glasses. "Sometimes, I'd just think about how you'd bite down on your tongue when you were working on a sketch, or the way your eyes have a little bit of green in them, or… you know… the way you'd sound when you'd talk to me."

"Careful, Arthur, you might touch my heart," Eames tried to tease, but he sounded just a little too sincere. It had slipped back into his intonation so easily that he was left a little dumbstruck.

Arthur swallowed, pulling his hand away in embarrassment to grab his coffee with both hands and put it to his mouth. "So, are you still hanging out with Yusuf? How has he been?"

Eames snorted, grinning, and drained the rest of his tea. "Yusuf's been around on occasion, but he's got this girlfriend, Uma, gathering all of his current attention. I lived with him for a while, but that didn't work out as I quickly discovered I was allergic to cats. I think Uma might be the one for him… Oh, bugger, how depressing, I'll never see him again!"

Arthur laughed. "I still see Cobb, and he's married."

"Young people get married too quick nowadays," Eames said, shaking his head.

"He and Mal will make it," Arthur replied, smiling warmly. "I took some really beautiful shots of them."

"So you still do photography?"

Arthur nodded. "I'm studying to become a photojournalist, actually. My photography's won a couple of local awards here and there. I got a hundred dollars from the literary magazine art contest at school too."

"I knew you had a knack for it," Eames said.

Arthur looked away from him, and Eames wondered if maybe Arthur had noticed something familiar in his eyes as well.

"About what happened five years ago…" Eames started in again, and Arthur stared with an unreadable expression. "Do you regret it?"

"The beginning or the end?" Arthur asked.

Eames paused, thinning his lips while he thought about it, and then decided on, "Both, all of it."

"Yes and no," Arthur replied, placing his cup down gently, "not… necessarily in that order."

"You darling little liar."

"There are plenty of things I regret about it!" Arthur huffed. "It's not a lie… I regret the fight, and I regret that I was pretty much molested by my principal, and I regret that I lied to you in the first place, and I…"

"You still regret ending it," Eames finished.

"Sometimes," Arthur confessed, "but… it was for the best. It was too messy, too complicated. I needed to get out in the world and live my life. I couldn't spend an eternity holed up in your apartment, entangled in your limbs."

"That doesn't sound like such a bad eternity."

"I wanted to know who I was, and I think I will someday. I feel like I'm learning something new about myself all the time."

"That is generally how it works, yes," Eames nodded. "You never stop learning." He lifted Arthur's hand from the table and pressed it to his lips, not kissing but letting it linger there. "Tell me," he said against the skin, "what exactly are you learning from this bizarre little happenstance, hm?"

Arthur opened his mouth and closed it. Blinked. Yanked his hand away.

"I'm learning you're just a forward as you always were."

"I believe _you_ were the one who came onto _me_ ," Eames responded innocently.

"True…"

"I just wanted to touch you," Eames replied. "You know how fond I always was of your hands. You should stop biting your nails though."

"Finals are coming up. I'll be fine after that…" Arthur mumbled, tucking a stray tuft of hair behind his ear in embarrassment. It fell right back into place as soon as he let go of it. "No, you're right, I should stop that… I'm sorry—"

"You're doing it again, darling."

It took Arthur a moment to realize exactly what he meant by that.

"Oh, fuck it," Arthur said, standing from his chair to lean over the table and delete the distance between them in a kiss.

When Arthur pulled away, Eames smiled against his lips and said, "You kiss like an amateur."

Arthur sighed a little and said, "I'll keep practicing… Thomas."

"Please, call me Eames."

_(You don't know I sing these songs about you, you don't know the pseudonyms I assume..._

_for you.)_


End file.
